Strike Coverage: Local One Amasses $5M Strike Fund
From Juan Gonzalez' column in the Daily News, November 21, 2007:
Local One Stage Union Amasses $5M Strike Fund to Fight Bosses, Lawyers
"Broadway owners and producers… hired the Proskauer Rose law firm and its labor relations chairman, Bernard Plum, to fashion their strategy. The city's organized labor movement hates Proskauer Rose. This is the same firm that advised the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in labor negotiations that led to the disastrous transit workers strike two years ago….
"Only about 350 of Local One's 2,200 active members are involved in the work stoppage. That's not a big number, considering the union's coffers are bulging with cash. This Friday, Local One will begin paying each striker about $400 a week in strike pay. It is even offering some money to the ushers and porters idled by the walkout. At that rate, the union can afford to provide its members weekly checks well into next year. The theater owners who followed Proskauer Rose's advice have lost more money than they would have saved if they got what they wanted. Every day the strike continues, the owners, the workers and the city lose millions more, and our city loses a big part of what makes it unique during the holiday season. Only Proskauer Rose and its $800-an-hour lawyers will make money from here on."
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