The tender landscape of art can often obscure labor nastiness, and stupidity, that rivals anything you'd find in the corporate world, with stupidity and greed part of the mix (take Arianna Huffington, grand narcissist, who is happy to leach off writers and make tens of millions along the way). Welcome to the New York Metropolitan Opera, folks, which, true to form, is trying to lay blame on its workers and threatening a lock-out, when mismanagement has been the order of the day.
The basic story is simple: Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Opera, has to figure out how to close a deficit that he created by his overspending and mismanagement. So, his answer: go after the workers. He's threatening to lock out the workers this week (a tactic straight from the worst playbooks of union-busting corporate raiders), even as the union's members have said they are willing to make some sacrifices--if Gelb the Greedy does a little self-inspection.
He could be mentally disturbed perhaps:
"If Peter Gelb thinks a lockout gives him 'leverage' in negotiations, he doesn't understand the performers who work for him," said Alan Gordon, executive director of the American Guild of Musical Artists, in a statement. "Someone who would hurt the very people who work for him by taking away their money and health insurance is a very disturbed individual, not a leader but a betrayer."[emphasis added]
Perhaps...but certainly greedy. The union explained in a press release recently:
Across the board, opera employees are questioning why the Met is demanding pay and benefit cuts from employees while delivering raises to top management. Earlier this week, the Met’s 990 tax-reporting forms were released for 2012 (the most recent year available) showing that the opera company’s general manager, Peter Gelb received a 26 percent increase in pay and benefits. Gelb received $1.8 million that year in compensation according to the 990s. In a statement to the New York Times, the Opera’s spokesman Peter Clark said that Gelb has since taken a 10 percent cut in pay.
Joe Hartnett, the IA’s Assistant Director of Stagecraft, termed this “a rebate on an overcharge,” and noted that Gelb used a similar maneuver during the last round of labor negotiations in 2009. “Nobody’s fooled when management gives themselves a 26% raise and then takes a 10% pay cut right before negotiations,” said Hartnett. “We’ve been waiting all week for an explanation of why the same management that has driven up costs and mismanaged the revenue stream deserves a raise, while the workers who actually produce the opera are being asked to take a pay cut. We’re still waiting.” [emphasis added]
And in
this story:
"We consider the Met Opera our family," says D. Joseph Hartnett of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. He's at the bargaining table for the six unions that represent the stagehands, wardrobe workers and box office personnel, among others. "We feel that, just as any family that has a budgetary crisis, everything needs to be on the table. And that includes Mr. Gelb's spending. And if we're being asked to tighten our belts, Mr. Gelb is gonna have to cut up some credit cards."
Today, the union released
a letter addressed to the Opera's Board of Directors which talks about the people who work at the Opera and savings already realized:
As the deadline draws near for negotiating a new agreement that, if successful, will sustain the Metropolitan Opera for years to come, we are struck by how little of what is being said and written about the members of the lATSE reflects a true understanding of how much those of us working behind the curtain love this great art form and how deeply committed we are to its perpetuation.
Like any love, ours cannot be measured solely in dollars and cents. We are not merely "the unions." We are not only the backstage artists whose technical expertise, night in and night out, helps to make possible the world's greatest opera. We are part of the Metropolitan Opera family, and our love of this family is why we believe that a solution for saving the Met lies in expanding the dialogue in our deliberations beyond a singular focus on work rules, wages and benefits.
....Our members hoped to bargain collaboratively in the spirit of family and the values shared by the Met Opera and its dedicated employees. Instead, we are being subjected not only to a narrow set of demands that ignores our commitment to achieving Mr. Gelb's vision, but also to blindness to the savings that a more comprehensive deliberation might achieve."
Aha...So, Gelb is no different than the greedy bankers, the Wal-Mart family, or any of the other miscreants who savage the middle class: it's his pay and wallet first in line, and fuck the rest of the people.