Latest accessory for NYC’s Fashion Week could be a picket line of unionized stagehands

Picket lines could ruffle NYC’s fashion week

NEW YORK — A union representing 2,200 stagehands is threatening to put on a show of its own when Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week opens at Lincoln Center next month.

The union’s leader said Tuesday that its members may picket the twice-yearly event that draws many of the world’s top designers.

Local 1 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees has a contract that covers the various theaters at Lincoln Center. The contract does not explicitly include Lincoln Center’s Damrosch Park, where Fashion Week will pitch its tents starting Sept. 9.

Union spokesman Bruce Cohen said that Local 1 has, however, a right to work Fashion Week. If the event goes forward with nonunion labor, picketing will be “one option,” he said.

“This is traditionally our work and we expect to do it,” Cohen said.

But IMG Fashion, the company that produces Fashion Week, contends there is no obligation to hire union labor for the event.

IMG spokesman Zach Eichman said via e-mail that the company hopes to find “an amicable solution.”

He said the company “is focused on providing the most cost efficient, effective, and user-friendly productions for our designer and sponsor clients and as such, will work diligently to make the move to Lincoln Center as smooth as possible.”

Fashion Week is moving to Damrosch Park in the southwest corner of Lincoln Center’s outdoor plaza after 18 years at Bryant Park in midtown. No union contract was in place at Bryant Park.

Union leaders say that even if IMG’s lease with Lincoln Center does not specifically require the company to use union labor, the union works other outdoor events there, such as the annual Christmas tree-lighting ceremony.

No negotiations between Local 1 and IMG are scheduled.