Lead­ers of the Inter­na­tion­al Alliance of The­atri­cal Stage Employ­ees (IATSE) and a spokes­woman for Live Nation Enter­tain­ment — a pro­mot­er that hires local stage­hands, rig­gers and tech­ni­cians for con­certs and some out­door fes­ti­vals in the area — both con­firmed the exis­tence of a new agree­ment for Lake­wood Amphitheater.

Per­se­ver­ance paid off for a hardy band of stage­hands try­ing to orga­nize a labor union for con­cert work­ers and oth­er temps in the Atlanta area. After three years of deter­mined effort, includ­ing a major defeat in fed­er­al court, the work­ers have staged a come­back with the rat­i­fi­ca­tion of a first con­tract with one of the most promi­nent con­cert pro­mot­ers in the country.

Although the agree­ment will ben­e­fit a small num­ber of work­ers — esti­mat­ed by the union at between 80 and 150 — IATSE is hop­ing it will help invig­o­rate orga­niz­ing in the South, where non-union labor con­trac­tors are depress­ing pay lev­els and ben­e­fits for this kind of free­lance work.

Live Nation spokes­woman Car­rie Davis put the num­ber of work­ers cov­ered by the agree­ment at between 25 and 90, say­ing it depends on the needs of a par­tic­u­lar show. She declined to respond to addi­tion­al ques­tions about the con­tent of the agree­ment, cit­ing a need for confidentiality.

“This is a mar­ket that has been non-union for 25 years. It’s an impor­tant first step,” says Dan Di Tol­la, co-direc­tor of IATSE’s stage­craft department.

As an orga­niz­er, Di Tol­la has been active in the Atlanta union cam­paign since 2013, when stage­hand anger over poor wages and abu­sive work prac­tices erupt­ed against one of Live Nation’s reg­u­lar labor con­trac­tors, a com­pa­ny called Crew One Pro­duc­tions. A grass­roots orga­niz­ing cam­paign at Crew One was aid­ed by IATSE but, as report­ed at In These Times last year, the orga­niz­ing efforts faced force­ful oppo­si­tion. Despite win­ning a union rep­re­sen­ta­tion elec­tion and a pro-union rul­ing from the Nation­al Labor Rela­tions Board (NLRB), IATSE’s efforts at Crew One were ulti­mate­ly crip­pled this year when U.S. Court of Appeals Judge William Pry­or over­ruled the NLRB in favor of Crew One. (Pry­or, an appointee of Pres­i­dent George W. Bush, was recent­ly named a poten­tial Supreme Court nom­i­nee by pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Don­ald Trump).

That left the work­ers with no alter­na­tive but to take their case direct­ly to Live Nation ​“and appeal to their sense of fair­ness,” says Bri­an Hill, one of the Crew One work­ers most active in the union fight.

IATSE thought an appeal to Live Nation’s sense of fair­ness might work, accord­ing to Di Tol­la, because the union already has more than 50 agree­ments with the com­pa­ny cov­er­ing venues in dif­fer­ent cities around the coun­try. Labor-man­age­ment rela­tions are often ami­ca­ble and mutu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial in those places, he says, so an Atlanta-area agree­ment seemed to be a work­able option for all concerned.

But Atlanta pre­sent­ed spe­cial prob­lems because cut-rate, non-union labor con­trac­tors have come to exert over­whelm­ing mar­ket pow­er. Hourly wages are down to $8.00 to $12.00 an hour with no ben­e­fits, accord­ing to Hill. Work­ing con­di­tions are degrad­ed to the point that there is not always suf­fi­cient water to drink for the crew on hot sum­mer days, he says. Even stan­dard safe­ty pro­ce­dures seem to go by the way­side in some cas­es, Hill adds.

Under the new con­tract, stage­hand employ­ees at Lake­wood work­ing for Live Nation will start out with a min­i­mum wage of $15.30 an hour, with high­er amounts up to $28 an hour paid to the more skilled crafts — which aver­ages out to an increase of 30 to 50 per­cent for work­ers — accord­ing to the union. Live Nation will also con­tribute to an IATSE train­ing fund that should improve safe­ty con­di­tions, Di Tol­la says.

Work­ers will be rep­re­sent­ed by IATSE Local 927, which cur­rent­ly has agree­ments to rep­re­sent stage­hand employ­ees at some of the city’s most promi­nent venues, such as the Geor­gia Inter­na­tion­al Con­ven­tion Cen­ter and the Fox The­ater. Nation­wide, IATSE rep­re­sents some 130,000 members.

“Nev­er give up fight­ing for the right thing. The work­ers have pow­er in num­bers, even if they don’t real­ize it,” says Hill. ​“Three years of hard work have come to fruition.