The power of unions: Average stagehand at Lincoln Center in NYC makes $290K a year
Read more at the Washington Examiner:
Columnist James Ahearn of New Jersey's Bergen Record has a great column today on, of all things, the stagehands at New York city's top performing arts venues such as Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. These are not highly skilled or technical jobs but take a gander at how much they are paid: At Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, the average stagehand salary and benefits package is $290,000 a year.
To repeat, that is the average compensation of all the workers who move musicians' chairs into place and hang lights, not the pay of the top five.
Across the plaza at the Metropolitan Opera, a spokesman said stagehands rarely broke into the top-five category. But a couple of years ago, one did. The props master, James Blumenfeld, got $334,000 at that time, including some vacation back pay.
Ahern also notes that the top paid stagehand at Carnegie Hall makes $422,599 a year in salary, plus $107,445 in benefits and deferred compensation. So why such exorbitant pay? You probably already guessed that a union is involved:
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by JuBru
