Twins’ summer concert series keeps Stagehands out in cold

IATSE Local 13 members supported an NHL game at Target Field last year.

Beyonce’s concert next Thursday at the University of Minnesota football stadium will create jobs for about 300 union stagehands – or about 300 more than will be working the Twins’ two-day rock festival at Target Field this weekend.

Local 13 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees today publicly called out the ball club and its festival partner, 555 Event Productions, for hiring independent contractors to cover stagehands’ work at TC Summer Fest this Friday and Saturday, despite the local’s repeated attempts to discuss solutions that would ensure a union presence.

“They don’t want to play ball,” Local 13 Business Manager Wendell Bell said.

The independent contractors, also known as “1099 workers,” will earn less than union scale, with no fringe benefits or coverage under workers’ compensation insurance. It’s a common arrangement for events produced by 555 Events, Bell said.

“These people are notorious throughout the Twin Cities for undermining union labor,” he said. “You’re not getting the quality. You’re not getting the safety. The pay is well under union scale. And if somebody gets hurt, where’s the recourse?”

TC Summer Fest is the Twins’ first attempt at a multi-day festival inside the downtown Minneapolis ballpark. Featured acts include The Killers, Imagine Dragons, The Flaming Lips and Death Cab for Cutie.

Bell, whose union represents about 3,000 behind-the-scenes workers at over 30 Twin Cities venues, began reaching out to the Twins about a month ago to discuss work on the festival, but he said the club “stonewalled” him until 10 days before the event. That left the union with too little time to mobilize an informational picket or public campaign.

When he did finally talk to a Twins executive, Bell said, attempts at a compromise that would have secured some work for union stagehands went nowhere.

“We just wanted to be considered in the jurisdiction of work that we have done in the past,” Bell said. “I understand the business, and there could have been some shared work recourse. That was never even considered or brought to our attention.”

Construction work on publicly funded stadiums in the Twin Cities has been covered by project labor agreements (PLAs), which require contractors bidding on the work to pay area-standard wages and fringe benefits. That frees up union contractors to offer bids based on quality and safety, rather than the lowest labor costs, and ensures laborers are covered by workers compensation.

But there is no comparable arrangement covering event-related contracting at publicly funded stadiums.

Meanwhile, union stagehands will be back at Target Field for the Pink show next month, working as loaders, production technicians, electricians, stage runners and more. That show’s promoter, Live Nation, has shown a preference for union stagehands in this market, Bell said.

“There is zero difference, no good reason why we aren’t out there this weekend in any kind of capacity,” Bell said. “It’s extreme, and that’s why we’re responding publicly.”