Zellerbach Hall is a world class performing arts facility built on the backs of precarious workers
- University of California stagehands receive no daily overtime pay despite regularly working 12+ hour and back-to-back shifts
- 90% of the stagehands at Zellerbach Hall are part-time permanent “temps,” (per diem) receiving no benefits, seniority, or path to career advancement despite tenures of 5-15 years and more
- Necessary career posts have been reduced by over 50%, blocking skilled and dedicated workers from fair compensation and benefits
University of California Management Is The Problem
- Cal Performances management operates within a culture of impunity, purposely misleading union workers and stonewalling attempts to secure fair working conditions
- With an increasing use of permanent temporary workers and a continual assault on on the well-earned benefits of its dedicated workers, we know that UC regards this unfair labor model as the wave of the future
- UC relies on maintaining this insecure labor force and charging performers industry standard rates for stagehand labor to increase their own profits
The stagehands of Zellerbach Hall/Cal Performances are asking for your support to achieve fair working conditions and compensation. Specifically we are petitioning the University of California for:
• The restoration of career staff positions
• Daily overtime pay over eight hours
Updates
March 31, 2016
The silence from management has been deafening while we continue to work these exhausting shifts. I have spent the last few weeks documenting every instance of neglect and it is clear they are banking on us giving up. We are not going anywhere.
Reached 100 supporters
March 31, 2016
27 Comments
15 years as a temp worker? Illegal non-payment of overtime? avoiding benefits? Would your board of directors - well paid - stand for such a deal? Why would you consider technicians in Zellerbach to be lesser beings? And yet you charge the companies who perform there as if you were paying a fully unionized company of hands? I'm surprised the hands have not left and or gone on strike! Executive Director: take the same pay & benefits cuts and then tell us how you feel about it.
If UC management can bring world class shows to Cal Performances, they can also provide fair pay and working conditions to the back stage workers who make the shows possible.
Meanwhile, Matias Tarnopolsky, head of Cal Performances, has doubled his salary since being hired in 2009 making more than governor Jerry Brown and claims to be ignorant of the plight of these hard working stagehands! Really Mr. Tarnopolsky?
It is a serious injustice that UC stagehands aren't being paid overtime even after working three 12 hour shifts in a row! Also, Cal Performances needs to support the professionalism of the people who work for it and the quality of it's productions with a reasonable number of permanent career positions
The abuse of the stagehands at Cal Performances is staggering, treating dedicated and long-serving workers as disposable cogs in a money-drenched machine. The rakeoff charged to visiting companies for labor hours is absolutely staggering, far higher than any hiring hall charges for a unionized worker with full benefits in other industries. It's an insult and it has to be stopped.
This labor exploitation at a public institution is disgraceful.
Over time after 8 is only fair compensation.
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Zellerbach Hall is a world class performing arts facility built on the backs of precarious workers
- University of California stagehands receive no daily overtime pay despite regularly working 12+ hour and back-to-back shifts
- 90% of the stagehands at Zellerbach Hall are part-time permanent “temps,” (per diem) receiving no benefits, seniority, or path to career advancement despite tenures of 5-15 years and more
- Necessary career posts have been reduced by over 50%, blocking skilled and dedicated workers from fair compensation and benefits
University of California Management Is The Problem
- Cal Performances management operates within a culture of impunity, purposely misleading union workers and stonewalling attempts to secure fair working conditions
- With an increasing use of permanent temporary workers and a continual assault on on the well-earned benefits of its dedicated workers, we know that UC regards this unfair labor model as the wave of the future
- UC relies on maintaining this insecure labor force and charging performers industry standard rates for stagehand labor to increase their own profits
The stagehands of Zellerbach Hall/Cal Performances are asking for your support to achieve fair working conditions and compensation. Specifically we are petitioning the University of California for:
• The restoration of career staff positions
• Daily overtime pay over eight hours
Updates
March 31, 2016
The silence from management has been deafening while we continue to work these exhausting shifts. I have spent the last few weeks documenting every instance of neglect and it is clear they are banking on us giving up. We are not going anywhere.
Reached 100 supporters
March 31, 2016
27 Comments
I worked there long ago and it was exactly the same as it now. And tuition now is out-of-hand.
15 years as a temp worker? Illegal non-payment of overtime? avoiding benefits? Would your board of directors - well paid - stand for such a deal? Why would you consider technicians in Zellerbach to be lesser beings? And yet you charge the companies who perform there as if you were paying a fully unionized company of hands? I'm surprised the hands have not left and or gone on strike! Executive Director: take the same pay & benefits cuts and then tell us how you feel about it.
If UC management can bring world class shows to Cal Performances, they can also provide fair pay and working conditions to the back stage workers who make the shows possible.
Meanwhile, Matias Tarnopolsky, head of Cal Performances, has doubled his salary since being hired in 2009 making more than governor Jerry Brown and claims to be ignorant of the plight of these hard working stagehands! Really Mr. Tarnopolsky?
It is a serious injustice that UC stagehands aren't being paid overtime even after working three 12 hour shifts in a row! Also, Cal Performances needs to support the professionalism of the people who work for it and the quality of it's productions with a reasonable number of permanent career positions
The abuse of the stagehands at Cal Performances is staggering, treating dedicated and long-serving workers as disposable cogs in a money-drenched machine. The rakeoff charged to visiting companies for labor hours is absolutely staggering, far higher than any hiring hall charges for a unionized worker with full benefits in other industries. It's an insult and it has to be stopped.
This labor exploitation at a public institution is disgraceful.
Over time after 8 is only fair compensation.
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I worked there long ago and it was exactly the same as it now. And tuition now is out-of-hand.