American Girl Place officials committed unfair labor practices in trying to dissuade performers at the company's New York theatre from voting to hire Actors' Equity Association as the performers' bargaining representative, a judge for the National Labor Relations Board has ruled. Separately, Equity told the NLRB it will hold a new election this fall to settle American Girl's charge that the union also tampered with the voting process.
It does not appear, however, that these two developments will bring the 18-month labor dispute to a rapid conclusion. American Girl spokesperson Julie Parks said the company plans to appeal the judge's ruling. As for the tampering charge, American Girl has until Aug. 22 to accept Equity's offer; the company is still considering it, Parks said.
American Girl Place, a unit of Mattel Inc., is a doll maker with stores in Manhattan, Chicago, and Los Angeles. At those outlets, it has theatres where musicals are staged that feature characters based on the dolls. Equity has been attempting to organize the adult actors at the New York theatre since February 2006. American Girl has rebuffed those attempts, even after actors voted 7-5 in favor of Equity representation at an NLRB-supervised election in mid-November.
Asked Friday if the settlement offer indicated Equity was conceding the tampering charge, a union official familiar with the negotiations said, "We're not conceding anything. We simply agreed to a new election." Asked if Equity had offered union memberships in advance of the election, she said, "I can't comment on that."
According to the NLRB ruling, American Girl Place threatened to postpone or revoke a proposed pay increase because actors wanted to have the union negotiate a contract for them; the company also threatened to impose "more onerous working conditions" on the actors if they hired the union as their bargaining agent, Administrative Law Judge Steven Davis stated in his decree, dated Aug. 10. "[American Girl] unlawfully informed its employees that they would not receive a pay raise or that such a pay increase would be postponed because of their support for the union," he wrote.
As for the tougher conditions, the judge wrote that the theatre's artistic director Heather de Michele's "remarks were direct threats that if the Union succeeded in organizing the actors, there would be less flexibility and more rigidity concerning matters which were vitally important to them -- vocal rest and working second jobs." Parks said of the ruling: "We believe that everyone at American Girl acted appropriately."
Flora Stamatiades, the Equity official in charge of organizing, said in a news release: "From day one, this has been about the actors' right to choose AEA as their collective bargaining representative.... It's time for American Girl Place to stop procrastinating and respect these actors by sitting down at the bargaining table."
