Carnegie’s stagehands make a lot more than the performers. A few facts:
1 $1,200 to $1,600 a week before 2007 strike. New five-year contract details were not released but reports stated they won a 25 percent raise over its duration.
2 Overtime clearly adds a lot to the pay at Carnegie.
3 Job description: Prepare Carnegie’s three stages for performances and operate audiovisual and sound fixtures.
4 Carnegie Hall had a $40.2 million operating shortfall in 2007-08.
The guys who push the piano onto the stage at Carnegie Hall make more than the guy who plays it.
Dennis O’Connell, who oversees props at the legendary concert hall, made $530,044 in the fiscal year that ended in June. A concert pianist making $20,000 a night would have to give 27 performances to beat him.
The four other members of the full-time stage crew — two carpenters and two electricians — had an average income of $430,543 during the same period, according to Carnegie Hall’s tax return. Only theater director Clive Gillinson earns more with his $946,581 in salary and benefits.
The stagehands have a powerful union: Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees shut down 26 Broadway shows for nearly three weeks in November 2007. Its strike cost the city $40 million, the city comptroller said at the time. Stagehands and producers agreed on a five-year contract that both sides called a compromise.
Labor historian Joshua Freeman said the union’s power to shut down a vital part of the city’s entertainment industry gives it leverage.