Strike Threatens Christmas Spectacular

A musicians strike at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall could have the Rockettes high-kicking this holiday season to pre-recorded Christmas songs, or worse, not at all.

Radio City’s annual Christmas Spectacular, set to open November 3rd for 10 weeks, could still go on with replacement musicians or electronically synthesized music, but the issue is not likely to be resolved until opening day.

In those 10 weeks, the venue runs 225 shows. Each aspect of the Christmas Spectacular has two sets of casts that do half the shows. There’s only one orchestra.

At issue is overtime pay. According to David Lennon, the president of Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, members of the venue’s 35-piece orchestra get $1,600 weekly for 12 shows a week, but Radio City operator Cablevision is refusing overtime.

The venue has been trying to negotiate with Local 802 since June.

On October 26th, hundreds of musicians and supporters staged a boisterous, music-filled protest behind police barricades in front of the hall.

Radio City Entertainment released a statement saying it “has offered our musicians an extremely fair contract proposal. … The contract includes increases in salary and benefits and fully protects the existing overtime system. They have rejected that proposal and walked away from the table.”

Radio City has said it is reaching out to musicians worldwide to cover in case of a strike.

“This is about union-busting by a corporate giant digging into the pockets of musicians,” said trombonist and union negotiator Mark Johansen. “At every negotiating session, we’ve been met with threats: ‘If you don’t accept this or that, we’ll hire other musicians or use tape. Take it or leave it.'”

Radio City Entertainment President Jay Marciano called the union “greedy.”

At press time, no talks were scheduled. The union authorized a strike September 28th.

Meanwhile, the unionized Rockettes reached their contract agreement in late October.