It’s a busy year for contracts. We ratified a one year extension for ACT and a three year deal with San Francisco Opera that includes a new Audience Development Premium and will pay sick-pay weekly like vacation pay whether employees are sick or not. We’re in the final stages of negotiating a one year agreement with San Francisco Ballet that we hope will memorialize some of the past practices there to assure employment in the future.

More exciting than the long term employers where we negotiated new term agreements, we got first time agreements with employers who had never signed term agreements with 784. We negotiated a jurisdiction-wide three year deal with Live Nation. We signed a side letter to the stagehand’s contract at SMG/Oracle Arena with parity of wages and benefits. At this writing we have finished negotiations with Team San Jose and have a tentative agreement (pending ratification) to cover yellow card tours from Broadway San Jose as well as other events in various San Jose venues. We are continuing to strategize regarding a San Francisco Symphony contract.

Remember that while negotiations are ongoing with any employer – new or long term – never discuss contract issues in the workplace. When you are referred to a job, your job is to report on time and do your best to meet the employer’s needs. As a union member you have officers and representatives to fight for you, and banded together each individual employee is what gives the union and your representatives and officers muscle to go up against employers.