NEW YORK (AP) - It's a drama worthy of the Metropolitan
Opera: Frantic, last-minute labor negotiations aimed at averting a lockout that
threatens to stop both pay and benefits for thousands of singers, musicians,
stagehands and other workers.
With just an hour to spare before general manager Peter
Gelb's vow of a 12:01 a.m. Friday deadline that would trigger a lockout, the
company announced it had agreed to a federal mediator's request to extend the
talks by 72 hours.
"We want to work together with union representatives,
and do everything we can to achieve new contracts, which is why we've agreed to
an extension," Gelb said.
The Met also announced it had reached new contract
agreements with three of the 15 unions whose contracts expired at midnight: Local
32BJ, Local 210, and Local 30.
Local 32BJ represents ushers, ticket takers, cleaning staff,
porters, security guards and office service workers; Local 210 represents the
call center; and Local 30 represents building engineers, the Met said.
A statement from the International Alliance of Theatrical
and Stage Employees said opera workers will report to work as scheduled on
Friday.
Tino Gagliardi, president of the Met's orchestra union,
called the extension a constructive move, but he said settling the dispute in
three days is "highly unrealistic given Gelb's proposed draconian
cuts."
A lockout would have disrupted the new opera season for the
first time in three decades.
At issue are the Met's finances. Gelb has demanded that the
unions accept salary cuts of about 17 percent, to cover a deficit of $2.8
million in the Met's $326 million annual budget.
But unions representing about 2,500 chorus singers,
orchestra musicians, stagehands, carpenters and others say they'll lose as much
as 30 percent of their income through additional pension cuts and higher health
care costs.
Union chorus members earn a base pay of about $100,000 a
year and as much as $200,000 with overtime. Orchestra musicians' salaries also
top $100,000.
Gelb says the salaries of union members represent about
two-thirds of company costs and that's where cuts should be made to balance
shrinking ticket sales, a depleted endowment and rising operating costs.
The artists contend that their doubled income is due to
Gelb's insistence on staging expensive new productions that got bad reviews but
required a lot of overtime and technical challenges, such as Wagner's
"Ring" cycle. They say they're bearing the brunt of his decisions.
"We're in at 10 a.m. and finish at midnight on many
days," chorister Rebecca Carvin said. "You miss weddings, you miss
family occasions and I haven't had Christmas with my family for 15 years."
She made contingency plans ahead of a possible lockout,
sprucing up her resume for jobs in hospital administration.
Union members have frequently cited what they call the Met's
"extreme waste," including the $169,000 cost to build a poppy field
in this year's $4.3 million production of Borodin's "Prince Igor" and
Gelb's insistence on special spotlights on singers in 25 productions that cost
$466,152, according to Carvin.
With the lockout looming, one singer who took her child to
the doctor was told the Met could cut off insurance on Friday.
"This is going to have fingers reaching far into the world,"
said another chorus soprano, Karen Dixon, noting that the Met's Saturday
afternoon broadcasts draw legions of listeners across the globe.
If the federal mediated talks don't succeed, the largest
classical music organization in North America, created in 1883, may be
shuttered for the new season set to begin Sept. 22.
Even if talks lead to a compromise, some spectators already
have refrained from buying tickets, leery of performances that may not happen
in the 3,800-seat theater.
A sleep-deprived Gelb, who has been the Met's general
manager since August 2006, said the situation was "more stressful than
anything I've encountered in my career."
"But I'm on a mission," he said. "I took this
job to keep the opera going, not to shut it down. Nobody wants a lockout. What
I want is a deal."
Source: My9
New Jersey
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