After two tense days of picketing at the stadium and closed-door negotiations, neither the Teamsters nor BGP got everything they wanted, but they did manage to get what they needed.

Negotiators from the Clear Channel subsidiary and the Teamsters managed to hammer out an agreement announced November 6th in front of San Francisco’s City Hall – all with the apparent blessing of no less a luminary than Mayor Willie Brown.

The Teamsters issued a press release saying Brown, not one to miss a PR opportunity, “has extended an invitation to all parties involved to use his office as a forum for rational and reasonable discussion on any future disagreements.”

Clear Channel agreed to hire Teamsters Local 85 members to perform the truck loading after the concerts, and the union agreed to call off the picket line – which had been honored by members of a stage hands’ union local, further complicating the union/nonunion labor situation inside the venue.

In addition, the San Francisco County Central Labor Council rescinded its sanction of the Teamsters’ picket line, BGP/Clear Channel’s Sherry Wasserman told POLLSTAR.

About 50 Teamsters vowed to shut down the shows if BGP parent Clear Channel insisted on employing nonunion stage hands and drivers. They formed a line in front of the stadium November 4th.

Some of their truck-driving brethren reportedly pulled up to unload gear for the following weekend’s shows then left after talking to Teamsters on the line, though Wasserman denied any trucks were turned away and said all deliveries were completed.

“Teamsters have never been part of, or in very few cities have the Teamsters been part of, production and the construction of concerts,” Wasserman said.

Initial reports indicated that among the jobs Teamsters demanded access to were stagehand and construction jobs – positions generally performed by members of a different union.

The Teamsters, according to Wasserman, were barking up the wrong tree.

“We have a contract with the Local 16 stagehands union in the city of the San Francisco for all work that we perform in San Francisco, that perform nine out of 10 jobs, which means they perform all of the work except for what nonunion loaders do, which is load trucks in and out,” she said.

“These Teamsters … don’t even know that their brothers’ union drives forklifts. And they’re stating in the press that nonunion employees are doing those jobs. They don’t have their facts straight.”

But with the agreement, according to Wasserman, “We’re back to work. … We successfully negotiated that sanctions be lifted and the picket line is done. Everybody who is supposed to be working is back doing their jobs.”

The Stones’ production crew had been prepared to stage the show in any event.

“The show would have gone on without any union help, had they forced that hand,” Rolling Stones production manager Jake Berry said through Wasserman, who added, “He was prepared, with his 125 people on the road, to have done this show no matter what happened, and they were capable of it.”

The next hurdle for both the Teamsters and BGP was one they couldn’t negotiate away. As the show dates approached, weather prognosticators were calling for as much as four inches of rain over the Stones’ two-day, rain-or-shine Pac Bell Park stand.