IATSE Local 18 - Our Future

IATSE Local 18 has been working hard at organizing the remaining live event venues here in Milwaukee.  Stagehands are easily exploited without a union, and we want to make sure that the workers at Milwaukee’s well-known venues have the protections and benefits of a union.  We’re happy to have the stagehands at the Fiserv Forum, Riverside Theater, and Alpine Valley joining us in recent years.

Local 18 will continue to provide a good standard of living for its members as we make sure stagehands across the city get the pay and respect they deserve.  We hope to expand our membership and build up a new generation of stagehands that will maintain the high level of work we do for live events.

Expanding our union’s reach into the Fiserv Forum was a major victory for Local 18.  The new arena will be hosting some of the biggest and most complicated events to come through Milwaukee for the foreseeable future.  

It will be a while before the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are resolved in our industry.  Many smaller event venues across the country closed for good in the last two years, and if they reopen, they may be operating under increasingly larger monopoly corporations like Ticketmaster.  Keeping our members safe as COVID restrictions are loosened and guidelines change is a priority.  With some members out of work for almost two years, we expect to lose some people who decide to leave the industry in order to keep food on their table.  Maintaining a healthy and busy membership will be our priority for the near future.