The Theater War on Hewitt Avenue
The local Trades Council rallies behind stage hands, accusing the Everett Theatre manager of using a contract dispute to mask business failures.
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No fair-minded person can read the scale of wages asked for by the local union of stage workers and say they are asking too much. Far from being exorbitant, it is conservative when compared with the scale paid in other Sound cities. The manager of the Hewitt Avenue house claims he is making no money, but we are informed that any attraction playing his house pays in advance. It is further intimated that a booking fight between the Klaw & Erlanger syndicate has something to do with his determination to close the house, and he is using the wage demand as a cover for the stall. At any rate, the Trades Council is convinced that the stage workers are absolutely justified in their demand and we are prepared to back them in their fight.
“A competent set of workmen behind the scenes is just as necessary to the successful production of a theatrical performance as an able ensemble.”
Theater labor disputes were a frequent feature of the 1910s labor press, reflecting a time when Everett's downtown cultural life was a front line for union organizing. Today, the theater is gone, but the same underlying tension—the struggle between overhead costs and fair compensation for service workers—continues to define the city's economic debates.
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