On Broadway Tonight – Strike
In 2003, a musicians’ union strike shuttered Broadway for four days, causing the theatre industry’s flagship location to suffer millions of dollars in losses. The outcome was a negotiated compromise: Musicians, who were seeking to prevent producers from replacing too many live performers with computer-based music systems, accepted the fact that the pit would go forward with a few less live bodies and reminded their employers that Broadway was rebounding with record profits from the problems of 2001. The producers, for their part, acknowledged that they could not completely automate the orchestra and were satisfied with keeping just a little less of those enhanced profits.
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