Stagehands’ Union Signs Contract With Symphony

The troubled San Diego Symphony Orchestra, still at an impasse in contract talks with locked-out musicians, on Tuesday signed a three-year agreement with the stagehands’ union.

The contract provides for no increase in the hourly rate for stagehands this year, and for a 4% increase each succeeding year, union representative Birt Slater said.

In an unusual move, Tuesday’s signing was held at a news conference on stage at Symphony Hall. Symphony Executive Director Wesley O. Brustad denied that he was using the conference as leverage with the musicians to portray management as fair to labor unions.

Friday is a contract deadline with musicians. If there is no agreement by Friday, the symphony will drop a proposed concert mini-series in March. Brustad said that, although the two sides are not meeting, they are exchanging proposals.

Slater, who is business agent for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Local 122, acknowledged that the union didn’t get “everything we wanted” in the contract. But in referring to the five union members normally employed at symphony concerts, Slater said he wanted the terms reasonable enough “to keep these people in business.” (Local 122 has 125 members.) However, the symphony must pay the stagehands only when there is an orchestra concert.

While the symphony did honor the terms of its expired agreement with the stagehands throughout the fall, in September it abrogated a previous agreement with musicians and locked them out.

Because of fiscal woes and the contract impasse with musicians, the symphony in November canceled its winter concert season.