Well, it seems Madonna decided to step over the little people in stilletto heels last night - the better to reach the other little people who were actually paying her money.
The Material Girl ignored striking stagehands and crossed picket lines at the Forum (again) and raked in ticket prices of $55 to $350 from, oh, a few dozen fans who crossed the picket lines, too.
IATSE Local 33 has been haggling with management of the Forum, who chopped their wages by 35% and then shut them out and brought in non-union workers to handle their jobs. Forum managers SMG say they locked them out because the union staged a work slowdown (presumably to protest the cuts) ...
Interesting that there's absolutely no mention of any of this in the Times' coverage. It twitters on about the tour-opening show, which sounds like "Confessions" is a multimedia orgy worth every penny of your fan dollar - if you didn't mind joining her highness in ignoring a labor dispute over what sounds like massively bad-faith bargaining on the Forum's part.
Posted by: Mack_Reed on Monday, May 22, 2006 - 10:17 AM
