Production workers at Little Shop of Horrors have unionized. Producers of the off-Broadway musical had sought to delay an election and disputed the eligibility of two crew members to cast ballots.
The vote was 16 in favor of joining the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) and one opposed, according to a National Labor Relations Board filing. On Friday, the NLRB certified IATSE as the collective-bargaining representative of 26 full-time, part-time and on-call Little Shop workers, in audio, video, carpentry, wardrobe, hair and makeup. Six to eight crew members work any given performance, the producers said in a filing.
Two votes were “challenged.” Management argued that the wardrobe supervisor and the head of the audio department could “taint” an election by unduly influencing other workers’ votes.
Skid Row Downtown LLC — the company presenting the show, led by Tom Kirdahy, Hunter Arnold and Robert Ahrens — had retained Littler Mendelson, P.C., a law firm that’s represented Starbucks Corp. for more than two years in the coffee company’s campaign to thwart unionization. On behalf of Skid Row Downtown, Littler Mendelson filed at least 200 pages of documents with the NLRB, including internal emails intended to illustrate that the audio head and wardrobe supervisor are managers and ineligible to vote under federal labor law.
A Little Shop spokeswoman didn’t return emails for comment.
Production workers off-Broadway are seeking better pay and, in the case of freelancers, the chance to earn benefits. They’ve recently unionized with IATSE at the commercial musical Titanique and the non-profit Atlantic Theater. Management at the Vineyard Theatre voluntarily recognized IATSE.
The Public Theater and the union recently reached an agreement for workers to vote in an election conducted by the American Arbitration Association, a person familiar with the situation said. It will be held over the next month.
Contesting the labor movement’s momentum is awkward in theater, given the industry’s reputation as politically progressive. Little Shop’s producers might argue that they have little leeway to increase expenses.
While the musical was solidly profitable early in its run — it opened in October 2019 starring Jonathan Groff, Tammy Blanchard and Christian Borle — it struggled coming out of the pandemic-induced shutdown. It had a running loss at the Westside Theatre in every four-week period from May 30 to Dec. 11, 2022, according to a financial statement filed with the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James. It had an operating profit during the 2022 Christmas holidays, but suffered an overall loss of $734,000 during the final seven months of that year.
Little Shop weathered the storm with big help from the federal government. Skid Row Downtown, which was capitalized for $2.2 million, received $10 million in aid via the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program, which was designed to rescue live entertainment from the effects of Covid-19.
The producers requested that the NLRB make a decision before the election about whether the head of the audio department and the wardrobe supervisor were managers.
“Supervisors have the power to affect the working life of the employee,” the producers said in an NLRB filing. Soliciting co-workers to sign union authorization cards “gives supervisors the opportunity to determine who is pro-union and who is not. When solicited, an employee will reasonably be concerned with making the “right” or “wrong” response and whether that response will be treated with favor or disfavor.”
The NLRB rejected the request. Instead, the two workers’ votes didn’t count in the final tally. Lawrence Levien, a Littler Mendelson lawyer representing Little Shop, didn’t return an email for comment.
