UNIONS AND ASSOCIATIONS WANT FAIR WORKING CONTRACT WITH BLUE MAN GROUP PRODUCTIONS

CCA Bul­letin 20/05

Ottawa, April 28, 2005 -  Blue Man Group Pro­duc­tions is prepar­ing to open a show in June in

Toronto at the newly-renovated Pana­sonic The­atre (for­merly the New Yorker The­atre), but the

pro­duc­ers have repeat­edly ignored the attempts of four Toronto the­atri­cal unions and

asso­ci­a­tions (Cana­dian Actors’ Equity Asso­ci­a­tion — CAEA, the Toronto Musicians’

Asso­ci­a­tion – TMA, and the Inter­na­tional Alliance of The­atri­cal Stage Employ­ees – IATSE,

Locals 58 and 822) to nego­ti­ate con­tracts spec­i­fy­ing base pay, ben­e­fits, and defined working

con­di­tions for per­form­ers and crew.

 

What these unions and asso­ci­a­tions want is to be able to guar­an­tee that pro­fes­sional artists

and tech­ni­cians work­ing in this stage pro­duc­tion have a fair work­ing con­tract.  Additionally,

they would like to ensure that Blue Man Group works on a level play­ing field with other

pro­fes­sional pro­duc­ers, such as CanStage (The Over­coat, Urine­town) and Mirvish Productions

(Lion King, Mamma Mia!, Hair­spray).  The fol­low­ing orga­ni­za­tions are involved in the drive

to get Blue Man to bargain:

• CAEA, the pro­fes­sional asso­ci­a­tion of per­form­ers, direc­tors, chore­o­g­ra­phers, fight

direc­tors and stage man­agers in Eng­lish Canada who are engaged in live performance

in the­atre, opera and dance.

• IATSE has pro­vided pro­fes­sional stag­ing ser­vices to the Toronto entertainment,

con­ven­tion, and trade show indus­tries for more than 100 years.

• The TMA is a pro­fes­sional asso­ci­a­tion of musi­cians in the Greater Toronto Area.  It is

part of a larger orga­ni­za­tion, the Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of Musi­cians of the U.S. and

Canada (AFM), which encom­passes both coun­tries. The AFM’s Cana­dian membership

includes 16,000 musi­cians, 3,200 of whom belong to the TMA.

 

They appeal to mem­bers of the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) to boy­cott the

pur­chase of Blue Man Group tick­ets until agree­ments are nego­ti­ated with CAEA, IATSE, and

the TMA.  You can also write the pro­ducer to request that nego­ti­a­tions commence

imme­di­ately and visit the web­site www.bluemanboycott.com to sign their on-line protest

peti­tion and reg­is­ter any comments.

To date, other orga­ni­za­tions that have voiced their sup­port include, in Ontario: the Ontario

Fed­er­a­tion of Labour, Ontario Teach­ers’ Fed­er­a­tion, the Ontario Sec­ondary School Teachers’

Fed­er­a­tion, OSSTF — Dis­trict 12 (Toronto), Ele­men­tary Teach­ers of Toronto, Cana­dian Union of

Pub­lic Employ­ees (Local 4400), United Food and Com­mer­cial Work­ers, United Steel Workers,

Union des artistes, ACTRA Toronto Per­form­ers, and ACTRA National.  And internationally,

there is sup­port from: Actors’ Equity Asso­ci­a­tion (USA), IATSE Inter­na­tional, AFM

Inter­na­tional, Inter­na­tional Fed­er­a­tion of Musi­cians, Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of Tele­vi­sion and

Radio Artists, Media and Enter­tain­ment Arts Alliance/Australian Equity, Syn­di­cat Français

des Artistes-interprètes, British Equity, Nor­we­gian Actors’ Equity Asso­ci­a­tion, UNI-MEI

(inter­na­tional), and the Inter­na­tional Fed­er­a­tion of Actors.

Time­line of events:

Decem­ber 2004 – Cana­dian Actors’ Equity Asso­ci­a­tion, The Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of Musicians

of the United States and Canada , and the Alliance of Cana­dien Cin­ema, Tele­vi­sion and Radio

Artists (ACTRA) instructed its mem­bers not to audi­tion or accept an offer to per­form in the

Cana­dian Blue Man Group (BMG) pro­duc­tion unless and until CAEA was suc­cess­ful in orga­niz­ing the

pro­duc­tion under contract.

Jan­u­ary 19, 2005 – An infor­ma­tion picket is orga­nized by CAEA, TMA – Local 149 of the AFM, and IATSE

- Locals 58 and 822, at The Phoenix Con­cert The­atre (the loca­tion of the BMG media event to announce

their arrival in Toronto).

April 5, 2005 – CAEA, TMA– Local 149 of the AFM, and IATSE — Locals 58 and 822 jointly launched a

con­sumer boy­cott of Blue Man Group tickets.

April 13th, 2005 – NDP cul­ture critic from the Leg­isla­tive Assem­bly of Ontario, Mr. Rosario Marchese

(Trinity-Spadina), voices sup­port for the boycott.

Artists are at the heart of the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts. We under­stand and respect their

fun­da­men­tal role in build­ing and main­tain­ing a cre­ative, dynamic, and civil soci­ety. Since 1945, the CCA

has have been work­ing to ensure that artists can con­tribute freely and fully to Cana­dian soci­ety. The CCA

advo­cates on behalf of artists in Canada to defend their rights, artic­u­late their needs, and cel­e­brate their

accom­plish­ments. “The full respect of pro­fes­sional artists’ rights is the foun­da­tion of any cre­ative city,“

says Jean Malavoy, National Direc­tor of the CCA.