Broadway strike talks continue into night again

As the Broadway stagehands strike entered its 17th day, the two sides resumed talks Monday night, seeking common ground in a dispute that has temporarily shut down most of the plays and musicals in the theater district.

After a marathon 20-hour session ended early Monday, negotiators met again in the evening at a Midtown law office and voiced optimism that a resolution could be reached soon. But there was no indication of when the crippling strike might end.

“We’re hoping for a successful conclusion. . . . We would love for it to be in a few hours,” Charlotte St. Martin, executive director of the League of American Theatres and Producers, told NY1, a television news channel. The League has been locked in a battle with Local 1, an affiliate of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which represents about 3,000 employees.

Union spokesman Bruce Cohen said: “We’re trying to find something we can all agree on.”

He said that the talks ended Monday morning not because of irreconcilable differences, but because “we were all exhausted” and the two sides needed time to rest during the day before continuing discussions late into the night.

Cohen emerged from the meetings at 9 p.m. and told reporters: “We’re closer now than we were 24 hours ago, and hopefully before the sun rises we’ll be very close.”

The strike, which began Nov. 10, has drawn national attention, and pressure has been growing on both sides to end the walkout.

On Monday, New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg urged negotiators to settle their differences, noting that Broadway is a $1-billion annual business and that “there are economic pockets that are affected . . . the restaurants, the people who work in this business. It would be in everyone’s interest to settle this.”

Estimates of the strike’s financial toll have varied. New York City officials have pegged the loss at $2 million a day. The League said the full cost, including economic damage to restaurants, parking garages, tourist shops and the like, is $17 million a day.

The two sides had met the weekend before Thanksgiving, but discussions broke down and both parties accused each other of bad faith. The standoff stung Broadway during the traditionally busy holiday weekend and threatened further economic havoc in the Christmas season.

The key issue in the strike has been how many stagehands should be required to work on various Broadway productions. The League has said that the staffing requirements in the union’s earlier contract were excessive and verged on featherbedding. It asked that the numbers be more flexible. But the union has protested such cutbacks, saying they threaten workplace safety and hard-won jobs.

Sources close to the talks indicated that there had been agreement on the crucial “load-in” question, or how many stagehands are needed to help install a show when it moves into a theater. Differences remained, however, on the continuity issue, determining how stagehands are to be paid if they work before or after their assigned shifts. There were also disagreements on how much employees should be paid to mop the floors of theaters.

Ever since Local 1 began the strike, some of Broadway’s biggest shows have been closed, including “Wicked,” “Avenue Q,” “Spring Awakening,” “The Lion King” and “The Drowsy Chaperone.” Nine shows have remained open because they had signed separate labor agreements with Local 1.

josh.getlin@latimes.com