Skip to content

Theatre Workers

Atlantic Theater Company Workers Go On Strike

On Sunday, January 12, Atlantic Theater Company (ATC) workers in New York City announced they are going on strike after long and arduous negotiations have not produced a collective bargaining agreement worth signing. This bargaining unit consists of carpenters, electricians, painters, audio and video technicians, hairdressers, makeup artists, wardrobe workers, and others. The show quite literally cannot go on without them. ATC workers voted 129-1 in favor of unionizing with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) in February 2024, becoming the first major off-broadway theater to do so.

Move To Unionize Tour Could Rewrite How Theater Industry Operates

On April 12, the New York Times broke the story that the theater actors union Actors’ Equity Association is, for the first time in over 20 years, attempting to unionize a workplace. Inspired by recent wins at Amazon and Starbucks, actors and stage managers on the non-union national tour of the musical Waitress are moving to unionize after being contacted by Equity, as the union is known in the theater industry. This attempt represents one of the biggest developments in labor organizing within the theater industry in years and has the potential to largely rewrite the way that the theater industry operates.  This development represents a major change in strategy for Equity. For years, it operated less as a union of workers, and more as a league of professionals.