Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- There was no Broadway shutdown last week, and unless the warring parties breach their temporary truce, none will occur this week. But there's also no contract between producers and stagehands and the union has punched up the tension level, calling a strike vote for next Sunday.

The issues that have led to this volatile standoff are less about money than about technology and its effect on a tradition- bound industry. The saber rattling may harken back to union hall fist-waving of the 1930s, but the stakes are extremely high.

After a week of increasingly testy negotiations, the producers' most notable gesture was to remove the word ``lockout'' from their verbal quiver. This was their way of admitting they could ill afford the public relations nightmare of taking the rap for shows going dark and workers jobless.

So the union called a strike vote for Oct. 21. With a pretty cushy contract already in hand, they're not inclined to be cowed by producers and theater owners.

The producers and stagehands have been performing this Strindbergian death dance since the end of July. One side presents an offer. The other side pouts like a spurned lover. Everyone gets hot and bothered; everyone cools off and then they start all over again. Mostly it's been for show.

But many of the rules governing work in the 13 unions represented on Broadway were won in an age before computer- driven sets, robotic lighting and digital orchestras. While every other industry has had to adapt to technological advances or face extinction, Broadway labor has been slow to awaken to reality.

Final Offers?

In its latest ``final'' offer, the League of American Theaters and Producers put on the table a 16 percent wage increase over five years. That's a little over 3 percent a year: not terrible and well above the rate of inflation. They sweetened their offer even more for crews putting a show into a theater (load-in) and eventually taking it out (load-out).

In return for their largesse, the managers demanded the right to use fewer of those more expensive workers and to deploy them with more flexibility.

In its latest ``final'' offer, Local 1 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees asked for 22.5 percent over five years, or about 4 percent a year. That's not an insurmountable gap in offers.

But while the union is willing to give up a teeny bit of control over how workers are used, the minimum numbers on load- in crews for both musicals (22) and non-musicals (18) remain extremely high. The union insists that its workers are among the most skilled in the entertainment industry and that they alone ensure safe, efficient load-ins.

He Said, He Said

If everyone in the current talks could stop yelling at each other for a minute, they ought to be able to iron out a fair contract. But because this is not about hourly wages, they're at a standoff and, possibly, a week away from a strike.

Here's what a veteran member of Local 1 and onetime negotiator said to me:

``Broadway is a small part of our world, and we can easily find work in TV and movies around the city. If there's a strike or a lockout, the landlords don't care -- they get their rent no matter what. But for the producers, every seat that's empty is a seat that can never be filled again. To be honest? We're in a win-win situation.''

Here's what a producer involved in the negotiations said to me:

``If I'm producing a musical today, my payroll includes paying a stagehand $40,000 a year to mop the stage. Whether the stage needs mopping or not. This is not skilled labor. I can't afford to keep paying men who don't have anything to do, or men who have too little to do but can't be asked to push a mop.''

Flops

Of course, producers have always complained about paying workers with nothing to do, whether it's stagehands in the wings or musicians in the pit. Union leaders counter that at the moment, the producers are raking in money by the barge load from hits such as ``Wicked'' and ``The Lion King,'' and, by the way, it's not their fault that so many shows are flops.

Yet the union is still acting as though it's 1957. It's not enough that stagehands earn a good wage. Local 1 insists there's plenty for everybody, as if the age of payroll-padding were still with us.

Broadway is a very different creature than it was a decade, let alone half a century, ago. It's a fragile environment in which a few strike it rich, many limp along and most fail. Commercial producers know it's folly to mount plays with huge casts. That's why, last season, Tom Stoppard's epic ``Coast of Utopia'' was presented by a nonprofit theater, and why the producers of ``Coram Boy'' took a $6 million bath and looked naive doing it.

If Local 1 wants to keep its men employed, it would do well to advise them against a strike and come to terms that make economic sense. Not just for the few lucky enough to work on a long-running hit, but for everyone else as well.

The only sure result of a shutdown will be to give customers one more reason (along with high ticket prices and swarming pedicabs) to avoid patronizing Broadway.

(Jeremy Gerard is an editor for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer on this story: Jeremy Gerard in New York at jgerard2@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 16, 2007 00:03 EDT