Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Blue Man Group’s dispute with unions spills onto Venetian sidewalk

With his face painted half-blue and half-red and his mouth open to shout, Dar Lawerence might have looked like an enraged Arizona Wildcats fan, but you rarely see one of those standing outside the Venetian, not with about 150 friends waving picket signs.

Lawerence was there with the stagehands union, IATSE Local 720, which claims it represents the crew for the Blue Man show and which the show claims does not. Hence the paint job: Lawerence says, "Blue Man should be red-faced with shame."

At stake are a health plan and a pension plan (both of which are more generous with the union), and the show's control over its employees.

The dispute between the union and the show officially has been boiling all through summer and fall, but it's been simmering since the show left the Luxor for the Venetian in fall 2005. At the Luxor, the crew was unionized; at the Venetian, it is not.

It wasn't long before the 40-plus stagehand and wardrobe crew began asking for union representation. For a moment, it looked as if they had it. In May employees voted for the union and the National Labor Relations Board certified the results.

Then Blue Man appealed the decision, saying that the election was not valid because it did not include a half-dozen musical technicians. It hired Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, a large Washington, D.C., law firm with a history of representing companies such as Starbucks and Albertson's in labor disputes. Republican appointees have a majority on the NLRB and the board generally is seen as tilting pro-business.

But in September the NLRB rejected Blue Man's arguments and ordered the mime show to bargain with the union. Four days later Blue Man sued to have the ruling overturned. It expects to have its answer sometime in the spring.

Blue Man is standing by its position that the vote should have included the music technicians, said Adrian Fischer, managing director of the Las Vegas show. In a faxed statement, the Blue Man Group calls on the union to be patient and wait for the court's decision.

Union spokesman Rob Rovere said the Blue Man Group's concerns were ridiculous and that IATSE has never represented music technicians.

"You know what? I bet they wouldn't be crying about the music techs if the election had gone their way," Rovere said. "It's just their excuse."

The two sides cannot even agree on the May vote's tally. The union says it was 21 to 14. Fischer says he doesn't remember the exact tally but says it was a squeaker.

"It was a pretty close vote," Fischer said, "it was closer than that."

A Blue Man technician, who asked that his name not appear in the paper, said he was personally prepared to strike but said he hoped it wouldn't come to that and that he liked his job.

"We're not looking to change a whole lot of our deal with the Blue Man Group," the technician said. "We don't want to shut down their show. We don't want to hurt anyone. We just want to be recognized, to have a guarantee."

Like other Blue Man employees, the technician stayed away from Wednesday's public protest. He said he didn't want trouble at work.

This is not Blue Man Group's only fight with labor. In Toronto, the show was the subject of a boycott over its refusal to recognize several theatrical unions. In September the company announced it was closing that show after an 18-month run.

In Las Vegas, the union's plan is to pressure Blue Man with protests and bad publicity. It hopes that even if Blue Man can ignore the protests, the protesters will annoy the company's landlords at the Venetian . And a good way to annoy the Venetian might be to give the show a bad name with tourists.

Publicly, the Venetian professes indifference. "This is between them and Blue Man, not us," chief spokesman Ron Reese said.

But both Reese and Venetian Vice President Scott Messinger were outside in the chilly Wednesday morning air, watching the protest and the tourists trying to make their way around it.

One tourist waiting to cross the street, with shouting, whistle-blowing protesters in front and behind her, shouted to her companion , "What the heck are they picketing?"

Her companion squinted at the signs.

"The Blue Man," he shouted back.

"Who?"

"The Blue Man," the companion shouted. "He isn't nice."

"To who?"

"His employees."

"Oh."

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