Strike Averted as Stage Union Tentatively Accepts Contract

A strike by union directors against South Coast Repertory and other members of the League of Resident Theaters was narrowly averted Tuesday when the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers tentatively agreed to a four-year contract with the league.

The terms of the contract “fall far short of the union’s stated goals,” according David Rosenak, who heads the SSDC. But the union’s executive board voted to accept the league’s final offer and recommended approval to the membership. The union had threatened to strike if an agreement was not reached by Tuesday.

At SCR, producing artistic director David Emmes said that he is “extremely happy” to hear of the agreement but noted that it would not change the theater’s plans for the 1989-90 season.

He said Warner Shook, a member of the SSDC, will direct Terrence McNally’s “Frankie and Johnny,” the first offering on the Second Stage in September. Shook recently staged “Breaking the Silence” at Pasadena Playhouse. As previously reported, Emmes will direct the first Mainstage offering, Alan Ayckbourn’s “A Chorus of Disapproval,” also in September.

Rosenak said the union’s 25-member board was split about accepting the league’s final offer but, after considerable debate, was “near unanimous” because a strike “did not have the full support of (union) members working” at league theaters.

He also said the board concluded that a strike “could not result in a significantly improved contract.”

League president Thomas Hall, the managing director of the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, said Tuesday he believes that Rosenak’s assessment “is essentially correct” and noted that he is both “pleased and relieved” about the agreement.

“It’s been a two-year effort,” Hall said; the old contract originally lapsed in 1987 and had to be extended until April of this year because negotiations had been unsuccessful.

The new contract, retroactive to April 15 of this year and effective through April 14, 1993, provides SSDC members with average fee increases of 7.3% at all categories of league theaters in the first year, followed by successive increases of 6.5%, 6.2% and 6.6%.

Beginning in the second year of the contract, pension and welfare benefits will be provided for certain small productions not previously covered.

No other details of the agreement were included in a statement issued Tuesday by the society.

A date for a ratification vote by the union’s 1,033 members was not yet scheduled.

“I believe the membership will follow the recommendation,” Rosenak said.