UPDATE: A new communication from AGMA, after the jump.

PREVIOUSLY: The MET Orchestra musicians who, we are assured, “love the Metropolitan Opera and want it to succeed” have revised their PPT deck to identify what they claim is an additional $1.2 million in cost savings to the company to be accomplished without taking any dings to their own personal paychecks. Notable among their cost-saving ideas: slashing the new production budget by 50% (i.e., allowing for five productions per season at the arbitrary figure of $2.2 million per), reducing rehearsal time, and blacking out the Met HD telecasts along the Northeast Corridor, a move they claim will “un-cannibalize” 22,000 in ticket sales annually.  

On the other hand, the 802 presentation is rationality itself compared to the latest spittle-fest issuing from Alan Gordon‘s mimeograph:

To:      All Met Principal Artists

Re:      Monday’s Negotiations With The Met

From: AGMA

We met with Peter Gelb and his team of lawyers on Monday July 28th. Five minutes into the negotiations it was apparent that he had no intention of reaching any reasonable  agreement and, instead, was set on his plan to lock out all of the Met’s performers on Friday, 8/1. The other unions report exactly the same conclusion from their negotiations.

Three examples should give you an understanding of Peter’s level of unreasonableness: 1) We reminded him that several single mothers in the chorus had severely disabled children needing constant medical care and other choristers who had children needing special medications, all of whom would be endangered if their health insurance was cut off when he locks out the performers, and we proposed that even if he fulfills his lockout threat on 8/1 he should nonetheless keep health insurance in effect until an eventually negotiated deal, so as not to intentionally and unnecessarily hurt his own people.

Gelb’s response was that he had to cut off their health insurance to give him ‘leverage’ in the negotiations.

2) We asked him if he would agree to refrain from asking any principal singers to ‘voluntarily’ reduce their contracted fees because of the clear implication that if they refused, they would not sing at the Met again. Gelb’s response was to argue that the question was improper and he wouldn’t answer it.

3) In an effort to show Peter that he knew nothing about the lives of the people he wanted to lock out, we asked him if he knew how much a gallon of milk, a dozen eggs or a gallon of gas cost. He had no idea whatsoever.

Once Gelb locks out performers on 8/1, it is certain that the Met will be dark at least for the remainder of 2014, probably longer. The Met will not let you perform and will not pay you. Gelb’s lockout has made your contracts valueless and he has undermined your reliance upon those contracts for future income.

AGMA, and the other two major unions, have filed several unfair labor practice charges over Gelb’s multiple violations of federal labor law. Ultimately, if those charges are upheld in court, the National Labor Relations Board can order the Met to pay you back for money you’ve lost.

After Friday, August 1st the Metropolitan Opera will cease to exist as you know it. Whatever remains in the future may be called the Metropolitan Opera but Peter Gelb has made certain that it will no longer be the Metropolitan Opera.

All of the Met’s performers want to ‘save the Met’ and share the belief that the Met could use their help in regaining fiscal viability. But none are willing to make concessions to perpetuate Peter Gelb’s failed stewardship.

One of our most illustrious members recently suggested on Facebook that Gelb was not a evil man. But, in our view,  someone who intentionally inflicts suffering upon his own people to save himself, who drives them out of work, who makes them have to choose between paying the rent, buying food or getting medicine for their children…if that is not evil, what is?

That person is a betrayer of his own people…the lowest level to which a human soul can sink.

Notwithstanding any lies he may tell you, or tales that he spins, only Peter Gelb can end this lockout. And he apparently wont.

Latest on Parterre

Comments