“Save Our Jobs!” signs were carried by a couple of dozen employees of the California Center for the Arts, Escondido at Wednesday night’s city council meeting.

Several Escondido members of the IATSE union that represents the technical workers who are the backbone of shows at CCAE spoke during “public comments.” Several speakers told the council that their jobs, and jobs of hundreds of similar technicians in North County are in danger because of the city’s action in publishing a request for proposal (RFP) for a private organization to operate the CCAE.

Most of those who spoke have been Escondido residents their entire lives. All said that being able to work at the Center had jump-started their careers in the theater. They added that the Center has through its training program, created similar jobs all over North County and beyond.

Greg Sowizdrzal, president of the local IATSE union—who was one of the speakers— told The Times-Advocate: “This whole process of putting an RFP out has been sudden and no outreach to those who work there. We don’t feel a whole lot of transparency. We want to know more. If they are making some changes there is no guarantee our people will have jobs. We don’t want them to make a decision without us being able to say something about it.”

We will have a full article on this happening in next week’s Escondido Times-Advocate.

Union members posing after some of them spoke to the city council about saving jobs at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido.