Broadway lights were on again last night.  After19 days of theatres being dark, the stagehands strike was settled.  The primary issue (using fewer stagehands to open a show but paying them more) was compromised.

Broadway Strike Ends With a Tentative Deal

Broadway, Restaged

The TV writers strike (focusing on how much, if any, of the new money the networks make off the writers’ work via new technologies should go to the writers) is still going after 24 days.  Late night comedians have nothing to say.  Reruns will be prime time’s only offering if the strike goes on much longer (as it’s predicted to do).

Pulling Their Punch Lines

STRIKE UPDATE: Both sides break 

Why the difference between the results of these strikes so far?

Well, I’m thinking there’s much more money at stake in the writers strike than the stagehands strike, so resolving the stagehands strike proved easier.

Without too big a leap I hope, I wonder if there’s another reason.  The stagehands have daily contact with the paying public.  They see the audience.  They hear the applause and laughter.  When the people they see every day or night are devastated that they can’t get in to see their shows–when audiences who’ve traveled great distances to the Big Apple to experience a play they’ve heard so much about can’t have the experience, it’s got to have a big impact on the stagehands, who may not be as connected to the audience as the performers but are pretty darn connected.

Not so, I would think, with the TV writers, most of whom don’t see their audiences and are quite removed from the people regularly watching their favorite TV shows.  Even writers who are present for live TV shows (and I’m guessing that we’re still talking about very few) don’t see the great majority of the audience, because most of us watch from our dens or bedrooms.

Now for the leap.

I’m reminded that personal contact makes a big difference in almost any situation, particularly when we look at HR and employment issues.  Discrimination charges and employment lawsuits are filed, union organizing campaigns get started, and strikes occur many times because there is no personal contact between employees and employers.  Employees feel isolated.  No one addresses their concerns.  They don’t feel appreciated.  And so on.

Don’t get me wrong.  There are bad employees.  You won’t be able to avoid all lawsuits or stop all union campaigns or prevent all strikes because you go out of your way to give your employees personal attention.  But I’m convinced that you sure as heck will avoid, stop and prevent many employee disputes by staying in personal touch with your employees.  If you don’t know your employees and they don’t know you . . . well, things are likely to go dark, and jobs will be performed half-heartedly, at best.

If I’ve tried to draw lessons out of these strikes by taking too big a leap, that’ ok.  The points I’ve made about staying in touch with your employees are critical to what we’re supposed to be doing in HR and employment law.

If the writers strike continues a long time, there’s no telling what employment lessons I’ll end up trying to dig out.