ALL POWER TO THE WORKERS

Theatre Shop Union is an independent union building democratic power within theatre workforces to ensure greater levels of equity in compensation and working conditions. TSU strives to advance social and economic justice within our community and we stand in unflinching solidarity with other workers.

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Theatre is a multi-billion dollar a year industry, yet the vast majority of us struggle to pay rent, afford healthcare, and enjoy the value of our labor. We, as theatre workers, are the backbone of the industry and we have the right to democratic power in our workplaces. Theatre Row, like other Off-Broadway Theatres, should recognize and compensate their workers for making the theatre industry the success it is today. 

Across the country, theatre employees deserve better and more equitable working conditions; our union strives to advance social and economic justice within our own community and stands in solidarity with other workers. For too long, arts workers have toiled without livable wages, safe working conditions, and adequate representation in their workplaces. Theatre Shop Union hopes to change that. We want to follow in the example set by our brave comrades at Starbucks, Amazon, and elsewhere and bring the unionization wave to the theatre. Every worker deserves a union and theatre workers are no exception. 

While we stand in solidarity with IATSE and AEA, theatre workers also deserve a union that provides organizing power not only to gig-workers, but to workforces collectively. Through TSU, we can build vital solidarity between workers in different departments (i.e box office, house managing, production, stage door, and more) to ensure a greater level of equity in compensation and working conditions. Under Theatre Shop Union, each shop floor will serve as its own bargaining unit, providing democratic worker control in each individual theatre.

As TSU grows, we will build solidarity and collective power among theatre workers across the country - reaching from Off-Broadway, to regional houses, to small blackbox theatres. TSU fights for the end of economic exploitation and social oppression within our community; we have created the wealth of the theatre and we demand that we get to share in that wealth.

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We also recognize that once we enter the shop floor, we do not stop being people with complex and intersecting identities. Given this, TSU stands in unflinching solidarity with workers who are fighting, not only against exploitation of the bosses, but societal oppression as well. We fight, not only for better wages and working conditions, but also for disability justice, queer and Black liberation, and against all other forms of oppression.

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We call on theatre workers across the country to join our fight and organize their workplaces.

We are the ones who make this industry run, so we should be the ones to run the industry.