The new Broadway agreement was ratified in early November. There are over 1,000 members of the bargaining unit, and the voting turnout was stellar. Thanks to all who added their voices to the ratification. I want to take a deeper dive into what we achieved here. The takeaway? Musicians won the largest wage increase in recent memory with no givebacks.

How we got here

The old agreement expired in March of this year. For a number of reasons, we didn’t sit down with management until September. On 802’s side, the Philharmonic negotiation that began last spring, with its expectation of a strike in the early days, soaked up most of our resources. The Broadway League offered us a simple contract extension (also called a “cut-through”) back in May that the negotiating committee took some time to consider and try to negotiate before both parties agreed not to pursue it. The offered wage increase was unacceptably low. This left us nowhere as summer began and we tried, repeatedly, to get dates from the League to begin a negotiation for real. We were unable to get them to respond to these requests until the end of summer.

Finally, in September, we were offered a series of dates beginning the end of the month and continuing into October.

What happened at the table?

We presented a broad, multi-layered set of demands, primarily focused on preserving the role of live musicians in the face of unprecedented advancements in musician replacement technology while seeking to shore up wages and benefits. Management offered us a relatively short list of demands, most of which we considered and to which we offered counter proposals. The League’s response to our demands was an across-the-board “hard no.” Let me repeat that: they said no to everything.

After several sessions in which we were the only ones to respond substantively to the other side’s demands, we walked out and began planning a contract campaign to take us up to the holiday season, which of course is a lucrative time for Broadway shows. To our surprise, four days after we walked out, the League proposed the compromise deal, which was slightly modified in the final stages and ultimately was ratified.

Here’s what we won:

• An 18-month term from March 4, 2024 to August 31, 2025. (The end date of August next year aligns with the end of the League’s agreement with Actors’ Equity.)
• Wage increases going forward of 4.5 percent. This deserves some elaboration. This wage increase, while it only applies to wages going forward from the signing of the agreement (it is not calculated on top of the retro pay), is a higher one-year wage increase than Broadway artists have seen in decades, and higher than increases gained by any other entertainment union without major concessions. Repeat: we won a historic wage increase without any givebacks.
• Retro pay of 3 percent. (As usual, this applies only to those shows open and running as of the signing of the agreement.)
• Repeat again: Local 802 made NO concessions
• Removal of gendered language in the Broadway agreement
• A waiver of the New York State sick pay law. (New York State law provides for mandatory paid sick leave from companies with more than 50 employees, whose full time employees work a certain number of hours. We routinely grant this waiver in our contracts, because all our agreements have sick pay provisions that are just as good if not better than what New York State law provides.)

In conclusion

Despite our unresolved list of demands, we believe that this is a good deal. We believe that the League understands that our demands remain important to us in preserving the world-class work we perform on Broadway on a daily basis. Unfortunately, through the course of this negotiation, the League sent many disturbing signals of their intent to attack attendance requirements, music prep roles and even minimums in the future.

This deal gives us time to prepare for the next round beginning next summer or fall. And we assume we will be negotiating after Equity next year, also a potential benefit to us.

Finally, that 4.5 percent number is a great base on which all guilds can negotiate their next agreements — and the next ones after that, too.

Thanks to the negotiating committee for their incredibly hard work: Justin Vance (chair), Steve Lyon (vice-chair), Deb Assael, Bud Burridge, Sylvia D’Avanzo, Nick Grinder, Isaac Hayward, Martha Hyde, Mary Ann McSweeney, Greg Riley and Alison Seidner.

What’s next?

On a communications note, there is widespread interest in the Broadway agreement among the public. Our post about the contract and the Broadway photo montage got a huge number of likes and shares. We see this as a good omen as we hit the ground running to begin organizing both Broadway musicians and the general public for the next contract negotiations. Those efforts start now.

Sara Cutler is president of Local 802