The Kennedy Center has responded to stage workers and IATSE Local 22’s negotiations and strike threats.

The company noted that “after more than a year of discussions and over 16 hours of talks yesterday, the Kennedy Center is disappointed that negotiations with its stagehands, IATSE Local 22, have now stalled over a single issue. Despite the Union’s claims, at the time the Union abandoned the negotiations, Center management had offered a multi-year contract which included increases in wages and benefits. The parties had already reached an agreement on COVID-19 protocols and various other issues of employment.”

The company continued, “The only outstanding issue was that the parties’ agreement included the Union’s demand to be the exclusive staff provider for work that traditionally they have not performed.”

According to the Kennedy Center, the Union is demanding that the performing arts center agree to expand the Union’s jurisdiction, requiring the Kennedy Center to exclusively use IATSE stagehands for not only events held at the Kennedy Center, but also in programming, it presents beyond its campus.

The Kennedy Center continued, “This would entail a fundamental shift in how we manage, staff, and budget for extended programming, impacting both events held in the community and outside events held at the Kennedy Center. A work expansion of this scale would be cost-prohibitive and unsustainable in the near and long term, forcing us to make further reductions in programming, entailing cuts and reductions to historically free or low-cost community outreach events and higher costs for rentals and outside vendors.”

The Kennedy Center asserts that it has taken negotiations with union representatives seriously and that after a 16-hour bargaining session yesterday and overnight, it was IATSE representatives that abandoned the meeting.

According to the center, the pandemic resulted in a $9 million deficit for the recently completed fiscal year (2021) and leaving a projected deficit of $7 million for 2022.

The Kennedy Center also added that it has not been notified of a work stoppage and therefore all performances and events will proceed as scheduled.

The Center’s statement comes as stage workers voted for a strike in response to alleged threats by the performing arts center’s management to slash wages 40 percent and eliminate jobs along with the imposition of other draconian cuts and changes to working conditions. If a strike is to occur, the upcoming performances of “Hadestown” could be canceled.