Sydney Theatre Company says no to violence

After two violent incidents directed at employees by patrons at the Sydney Theatre Company (STC) over the Christmas holiday period, employees rallied together to ensure their workplace took a strong stance against violence. 

Since these incidents, front of house staff have actively participated in meetings with management and the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) to achieve a number of positive outcomes that drastically improve their work health and safety.

First and foremost, Sydney Theatre Company management have firmly put to staff that ‘STC does not condone violence in the workplace’ whether that be verbal, sexual, emotional or physical. This pledge as well as a list of employee’s rights at work if they feel threatened, now appear in the front of house manual.

Ushers who were assaulted verbally and physically during those incidents over the holiday period were completely exonerated of any wrong-doing.

Mal Tulloch, director of Entertainment, Crew & Sport, said, “There is no excuse for violence in the workplace. We congratulate our STC members who have stood up in solidarity for those vulnerable employees to give them a voice.

“We welcome STC’s decision to implement strong work health and safety initiatives to show employees that there is no compromise when it comes to their safety.” Tulloch said.

Risk assessors conducted their assessment for the entire company and were able to assist in updating the company-wide workplace health and safety manual.

Policy wise, there are now procedures in place to protect employees if they feel threatened. Front of house (FOH) managers must carry out a duty of care to the employee as well as adhere to incident reporting procedures. FOH managers also now have procedures in place for ejecting patrons.

FOH staff now have a feasible safe work method statement for removing the H-row in the Roslyn Packer Theatre (RPT) and a safer procedure for removing seats in Wharf 1, which was a constant concern for staff. The company is also trialling an announcement in the theatres regarding use of mobile phones and ushers are no longer required to reach patrons by crawling across rows in the dark.

Ushers often find themselves ill equipped in dealing with challenging and inebriated patrons. Through working with STC management and MEAA, all ushers will now receive ‘intoxicated patrons’ training and ‘dealing with difficult customers’ training. Furthermore, the bar at RPT has stopped serving drinks five minutes before the start of each performance and at the end of interval, to reduce the consumption of alcohol before and during the production.

The usher recruitment process has also been formalised through human resources, and ushers will receive a higher duties pay for helping to train new recruits.

MEAA would like to congratulate the members who worked with us and STC management to achieve better conditions for staff.