Billboard slags
Blue Man's `muddy boots'
Unions'
salvo at non-Equity show
Theatre owner gives legal warning
Thursday,
May 5, 2005 - Toronto Star
ROBERT
CREW
ARTS WRITER
Vowing
to kick their campaign up a notch, theatrical unions have
unveiled a bright yellow, 700-square-foot billboard as the
next phase of their Blue Man Group boycott.
"Why
won't the Blue Man Group work with us?" asks the billboard,
which is just south of the Panasonic Theatre where the Blue
Man production is slated to open next month.
A lunchtime
information picket was held yesterday outside the theatre
to mark the unveiling of the billboard.
The unions
- Canadian Actors' Equity, Toronto Musicians' Association,
and Locals 58 and 822 of the International Alliance of Theatrical
Stage Employees - are angry at the Blue Man Group's refusal
to sit down and work with the unions on issues such as wages
and benefits.
The group,
which launched its first show in New York in 1991, has opened
other productions in Chicago, Boston, Las Vegas and Berlin,
all of which are non-Equity productions.
With the
imminent arrival of the show in Canada, Toronto unions want
to change that.
"We
will not have someone come into our home with their muddy
boots and put them up on the coffee table," Susan Wallace,
executive director of Canadian Actors' Equity, told a media
conference on the corner of Yonge and St. Mary Sts., just
across from the theatre.
"Today
the gloves come off," said Wallace, adding that support
from various unions means that 1.5 million Ontarians have
pledged not to buy tickets for the show.
Members
of the construction trade unions working on the new theatre
- formerly called the New Yorker - joined the information
picket during their lunch break.
That brought
a threat of legal action from the law firm Goodmans LLP, representing
Clear Channel Entertainment, the owner of the theatre.
Goodmans
told the unions that Clear Channel would "pursue all
legal remedies" if the picket caused "any disruption
and/or delay in the construction and/or renovation work that
is occurring at the theatre."
The unions
were quick to point out that former NDP premier Bob Rae is
a partner in the Goodmans law firm.
Goodmans
lawyer Joseph Morrison said Clear Channel had no comment.
©
2005 The Toronto Star
The
original article is located HERE
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