Alan Gordon has mass emailed AGMA again (this time, principal artists), and La Cieca’s got a copy of the missive.

From: [email protected]
Subject: Met Negotiations Update
Date: March 28, 2014 at 5:02:42 PM EDT
To: [email protected]

To: Met Principal Artists

Formal contract bargaining between AGMA and the Met is scheduled to begin on May 5th. Met negotiations with the Stagehands begin May 7th, and with the Orchestra shortly after that.

Despite the horrendous 30% compensation cuts and reductions in working conditions initially proposed by Peter Gelb to the members of all three unions, we hope and expect that he will come to abandon insistence on most of them and understand that the way to assure the Met’s continued existence is work with us in a rational attempt to jointly fix the Met’s problems, rather than to unilaterally impair the livelihood of its performing artists by locking out members of the three unions.

Soloists and their agents should be aware that, in a specific attempt to protect principal artists against the kinds of loss suffered by Wendy White when she was injured through the Met’s negligence, we made the following negotiating proposal:

“Proposal 6: We propose that the Met purchase a supplemental workers compensation insurance policy to cover and protect the income of all AGMA-represented performers against injuries that end or materially diminish their careers.”

You may not be aware that currently, if you are seriously injured while performing at the Met, even if the injury was caused by the Met’s negligence, the Met will take the position that you are only entitled to receive the insignificantly small amount of income provided by Workers Compensation Insurance. A supplemental policy purchased by the Met to cover all its singers would give you and your careers much more extensive protection.

If any of you would like to attend the negotiations, or have any questions, please let me know.

Alan Gordon
Executive Director