Wages and Salaries

Subterms

    More stories

    • 100 Shares189 Views

      in Music

      Metropolitan Opera Reaches Deal With Union Representing Chorus

      by

      Labor troubles have cast the company’s planned reopening in September in doubt; two other major unions have yet to reach deals.The Metropolitan Opera, whose efforts to cut the pay of its workers to help it survive the pandemic had left it locked in a bitter dispute with its unions, threatening to derail its planned September reopening, announced Tuesday that it had reached a deal with the union representing its chorus and other workers.The union, the American Guild of Musical Artists — which also represents soloists, dancers, actors and stage managers — is the first of the three largest Met unions to reach such a deal after months of sometimes-bitter division between labor and management over how deep and lasting the pandemic pay cuts should be. The Met had been seeking to cut the payroll costs for its highest-paid unions by 30 percent, which it said would cut the take-home pay of those workers by around 20 percent.The terms of the deal — the culmination of 14 weeks of negotiations — were not immediately disclosed; the company said they would remain confidential until the union held a vote to ratify the agreement on May 24.In recent weeks, New York officials have taken steps to loosen the restrictions around live performance, and in recent days several major Broadway shows have announced their intention to resume performances in September and October. But whether the Met can reopen in September, after the pandemic forced the opera house to remain closed for more than a year, depends on how quickly it can resolve its remaining labor problems.Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, said in a statement that he was grateful to the guild for “recognizing the extraordinary economic challenges the Met faces in the coming seasons.”Leonard Egert, the executive director of the guild, said in a statement that the new contract would “ensure the Met becomes a more equitable and better workplace.”“We are pleased to arrive at a new deal during the most trying time in performing arts’ history,” he said.The Met’s deal with the guild is just one step toward reopening. The union that represents its stagehands, Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, has been locked out since December, after the two sides failed to reach an agreement on pay cuts. Without its union stagehands, starting performances will likely be impossible. And the union representing the Met’s orchestra is still negotiating its contract.The opera company, the largest performing arts organization in the nation, says that it has lost $150 million in earned revenues — including ticket sales to the opera house and to its cinema simulcasts, as well as its shop and dining revenues — since the coronavirus pandemic forced it to close its doors more than a year ago. If the Met reopens in September, it will have gone 18 months without live performances in its opera house.The Met’s management has argued that such a long period of closure — and the uncertainty over the return of its audiences in an era where it could take years for New York City tourism to rebound to prepandemic levels — requires it to seek financial sacrifices from its employees. It has said that half of its proposed pay cuts would be restored once ticket revenues and core donations returned to prepandemic levels. A number of major American orchestras and opera companies have already negotiated pay cuts with their workers to help them survive the pandemic.After the opera house was closed, the members of its orchestra and chorus went unpaid for nearly a year. Then the company brought them to the bargaining table with the offer of up to $1,543 a week, less than half of what they are typically paid.On Thursday, union members are planning to rally in front of Lincoln Center as a display of solidarity during tense negotiations with management. Union leaders have accused the Met’s management of using the pandemic as a reason to force concessions from labor.If approved, the agreement with the guild will take effect on Aug. 1; for now, unions members will continue to receive partial payments. More

    • 100 Shares139 Views

      in Music

      Met Opera’s Music Director Decries Musicians’ Unpaid Furlough

      by

      Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s letter to the company’s leaders urges them to “find a solution to compensate our artists appropriately.”Urging the Metropolitan Opera to compensate its artists “appropriately,” the company’s music director, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, sent a letter to leaders at the Met on Thursday saying that the many months its orchestra and chorus had gone without pay during the pandemic had become “increasingly unacceptable.”He sent the letter as the Met’s musicians were scheduled to receive their first partial paychecks since they were furloughed in April. Before this week, they had been the last major ensemble in the country without a deal for at least some pay during the pandemic. In addressing the players’ nearly yearlong furlough — and hinting at the tough negotiations ahead, in which the Met is seeking long-term pay cuts from its unionized employees — Nézet-Séguin was doing something rare for a music director: weighing in on labor matters.“Of course, I understand this is a complex situation,” Nézet-Séguin wrote, “but as the public face of the Met on a musical level, I am finding it increasingly hard to justify what has happened.”The letter was obtained by The New York Times and confirmed by its recipients, which included Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager; the leaders of the negotiating committees representing the chorus and orchestra; and members of the opera’s board of directors.“We risk losing talent permanently,” Nézet-Séguin warned in the letter. “The orchestra and chorus are our crown jewels, and they must be protected. Their talent is the Met. The artists of the Met are the institution.”The orchestra committee has said that 10 out of 97 members have retired during the pandemic as the ensemble has gone unpaid, a stark increase from the two to three who retire in an average year.“Protecting the long-term future of the Met is inextricably linked with retaining these musicians, and with respecting their livelihoods, their income and their well-being,” Nézet-Séguin wrote.The Met said in a statement that “we share Yannick’s frustration over the lengthy closure and the impact it has had on our employees,” and added that the company was pleased that its orchestra and chorus and others were now receiving bridge pay. The Met said all involved were “working together for new agreements that will ensure the sustainability of the Met into the future.”The Met, the nation’s largest performing arts organization, has said that since the pandemic forced it to shut its doors it has lost an estimated $150 million in earned revenue, and that it was seeking pay cuts from its workers, as many arts institutions have. The Met has been trying to cut the payroll costs for its highest-paid unions by 30 percent — the change in take-home pay would be more like 20 percent, it has said — and has offered to restore half the cuts when ticket revenue and core donations return to prepandemic levels.Months into the furlough, the Met offered partial paychecks to its workers if they agreed to those cuts, but the unions resisted. At the end of the year, the Met offered partial paychecks on a temporary basis for simply returning to the bargaining table. Members of the American Guild of Musical Artists, which represents chorus members, dancers and others, accepted at the end of January and have been receiving paychecks for more than a month. The orchestra musicians voted to accept the offer this week. (The Met has locked out its stagehands, whose contract expired last year.)Nézet-Séguin wrote in his letter that he was relieved that both the musicians and the chorus members are now being paid, but added that “this is just a start.” The deal allows for temporary payments of up to $1,543 a week, less than half of what the musicians are typically paid.Nézet-Séguin was named the Met’s music director in 2016, when he was tapped to succeed James Levine, who led the company for four decades (Mr. Levine, who stepped down to an emeritus position because of health problems and was then fired two years later after an investigation into sexual abuse allegations, died earlier this month.)“I implore the fiduciaries of this incredible house to urgently help to find a solution to compensate our artists appropriately,” Nézet-Séguin wrote. “We all realize the challenges, economic and otherwise, that the Met is facing, and therefore I ask for empathy, honesty and open communication throughout this process.” More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in Music

      The Met Opera’s Musicians, Unpaid Since April, Are Struggling

      by

      About 40 percent of the players have left the New York area, and a tenth have retired. Now the Met is seeking long-term pay cuts, and offering them partial pay if they come to the bargaining table.As the months without a paycheck wore on, Joel Noyes, a 41-year-old cellist with the Metropolitan Opera, realized that in order to keep making his mortgage payments he would have to sell one of his most valuable possessions: his 19th-century Russian bow. He reluctantly switched back to the inferior one he had used as a child.“It’s kind of like if you were a racecar driver and you drove Ferraris on the Formula One circuit,” Mr. Noyes said, “and suddenly you had to get on the track in a Toyota Camry.”The Metropolitan Opera House has been dark for a year, and its musicians have gone unpaid for almost as long. The players in one of the finest orchestras in the world suddenly found themselves relying on unemployment benefits, scrambling for virtual teaching gigs, selling the tools of their trade and looking for cheaper housing. About 40 percent left the New York area. More than a tenth retired.After the musicians had been furloughed for months, the Met offered them reduced pay in the short term if they agreed to long-term cuts that the company, which estimates that it has lost $150 million in earned revenues, says it will need to survive. When the musicians resisted, the Met offered to begin temporarily paying them up to $1,534 a week — less than half their old pay, but something — if they simply returned to the bargaining table, a proposal the musicians are weighing.Now the Met’s increasingly rancorous labor battles — it has locked out its stagehands, and outsourced some set construction to Wales — are adding more uncertainty to the question of when the opera house can reopen after its long pandemic shutdown.Joel Noyes, a cellist in the orchestra, reluctantly sold his treasured 19th-century bow so he could continue to make his mortgage payments. Amr Alfiky/The New York TimesThe toll on the players has been steep.Benjamin Bowman, 41, is one of the orchestra’s two concertmasters — a leader of the first violin section who serves as a conduit between players and maestros. He and his family moved to Stuttgart, Germany, where he took a temporary job with the state orchestra. Daniel Khalikov, 37, a violinist, has been struggling to make the $2,600-a-month loan payments for his two fine violins. Angela Qianwen Shen, 30, a violinist who is not able to collect unemployment because she is in the United States on a visa, picked up some translation work to make ends meet.And Evan Epifanio, 32, the orchestra’s principal bassoonist, put his belongings in storage in June and left the city for the Midwest, where he said he and his husband have been dividing their time between the homes of his parents and his in-laws.“I’m living in my in-laws’ basement at the peak of my career,” Mr. Epifanio said. “I’m a one-trick pony, and now I can’t even do that.”Over the past year, 10 of the orchestra’s 97 members have retired, a stark increase from the two to three who retire in an average year, said Brad Gemeinhardt, the chairman of the orchestra committee, which negotiates labor issues on behalf of the musicians. Prominent figures in the music world are sounding warnings about the peril the orchestra faces: Riccardo Muti, the revered conductor, said in a statement earlier this year that the “artistic world is in disbelief that the very existence of a great orchestra like the Met’s could be in danger and even at risk of disappearing.”The Met, which was financially fragile even before the virus, was forced to shut its doors on March 12, 2020, and it furloughed most of its workers, including those in its orchestra and chorus, in April. (It continued to pay for their health coverage.) In the fall, the Met presented an offer to its employees: it would resume partial payments in exchange for significant long-term pay cuts and concessions. The unions resisted. By the end of the year the Met orchestra was the only major ensemble without a deal to receive pandemic pay, according to the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians.Then, in December, the company locked out its roughly 300 stagehands after their union, Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, rejected the Met’s proposed pay cuts. (In a letter to the union last year, Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, wrote that the average full-time stagehand cost the Met $260,000 in 2019, including benefits; the union disputes that number, saying that when the steady extra stage hands who work at the Met regularly, and sometimes full-time, are factored in, the average pay is far lower.)Mr. Gelb said that the company had no choice but to seek cuts when the pandemic left it in a perilous financial situation.“Suddenly we had no revenue, we had shut our doors and we had to do immediate triage so that the company would not fall apart and fold,” Mr. Gelb said. “We are doing the best we can in terms of keeping the company viable so that they will have jobs to return to.”At the end of last year, the Met offered the unions that represent the orchestra and chorus an olive branch: reduced paychecks for simply coming to the bargaining table. The American Guild of Musical Artists, which represents choristers, dancers and others, accepted the arrangement in January, and its members are receiving paychecks. Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians has not yet accepted the offer, Adam Krauthamer, the union’s president, said, but it is in the final stages of reaching a deal that the orchestra is voting on.Jeremy McCoy, who rose to assistant principal double bass while playing in the orchestra for 35 years, retired in May. Mr. McCoy, 57, said that he had been contemplating an early retirement, but not quite this early. When he realized that the Met’s furlough could last a long time, he said, he put in his papers, a decision that would allow him to begin collecting his pension rather than having his expenses eat into his savings indefinitely.Mr. McCoy said he was repelled by the idea of returning to an adversarial relationship between the musicians and management.“I don’t want to go back to big concessions and to a toxic environment,” he said.The opera house has been closed for more than a year, and the orchestra pit empty. Victor Llorente for The New York TimesThe Met said it was seeking to cut the payroll costs for its highest-paid unions by 30 percent — the change in take-home pay would be approximately 20 percent, it said — and that when ticket revenues and core donations returned to prepandemic levels, it would restore half of what had been cut. The Met declined to disclose the current average pay of its musicians, but during the run-up to contentious labor negotiations in 2014, officials said that the players had been paid an average of around $202,000 the prior year.Lincoln Center, with the Met in the middle, has been eerily empty. Amr Alfiky/The New York TimesMany orchestras have reached agreements for substantial, lasting pay cuts, including the New York Philharmonic, whose musicians agreed to 25 percent cuts to their base pay through August 2023. Mr. Krauthamer said that the Met Orchestra’s union had put forward its own proposal, which would cut pay but preserve work rules that the Met was seeking to change.Some orchestra members have said that they felt betrayed that the opera was not using its musicians in “Met Stars Live in Concert,” the pay-per-view recitals it has been producing from opulent settings in Europe. Most feature only piano accompaniment. A Met official with knowledge of the situation said that for the other performances, members of the company’s orchestra were not included because of the difficulties of travel during the pandemic and because of ongoing labor negotiations.The Met Orchestra has started staging its own virtual concerts and collecting donations to distribute to musicians in need. The most recent, starring the soprano Angela Gheorghiu, singing from Romania, began by clarifying that the performance was “not affiliated with the Metropolitan Opera.”Tanya Thompson, a carpenter who has worked at the Met for 15 years, says she will be back, but during the pandemic she has become an overnight home health aide. Amr Alfiky/The New York TimesBetween stagehands and management, the temperature is even higher.Since the lockout, the work of preparing sets for the coming season has gone to nonunion shops elsewhere in this country and overseas. The Met regularly commissions set-building outside the institution, but these jobs had been slated to be done internally.Sets for two operas scheduled to premiere at the Met next winter, “Rigoletto” and “Don Carlos,” are being built by Bay Productions, a company in Cardiff, Wales; the set for “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” will be built in California. With the sets being built elsewhere, the Met’s scenic painters are losing work even though they have not been locked out because there is nothing for them to paint, so they remain on furlough, said Cecilia Friederichs, a national business agent for the United Scenic Artists union.But the company will still need stagehands if it wants the show to go on this fall, said James J. Claffey Jr., the president of Local One.“You don’t even get to an opening night without us,” he said.The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees has launched a lobbying effort urging lawmakers to support a measure that would block stimulus funds from going to arts organizations that, like the Met, have locked out union employees.Mr. Gelb said that the effort seemed “self destructive” and that “any attempt to damage the institution will only make it harder for the employees once we return.”Tanya Thompson, a union carpenter who has worked at the Met for 15 years, had planned to return to work there in December. When Local One was locked out, she decided to continue in the new job she had taken over the summer to make ends meet: as an overnight home health aide for elderly patients.Ms. Thompson, 52, said she plans to go back to the opera house as soon as there’s a deal.“I’m a lifer,” she said. “We care about what we do and we want the Met to succeed.” More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Music

      Met Opera Musicians Accept Deal to Receive First Paycheck Since April

      by

      The Metropolitan Opera offered its orchestra temporary payments of up to $1,543 a week in exchange for simply coming to the bargaining table.The musicians of the Metropolitan Opera orchestra have voted to accept a deal that will provide them with paychecks for the first time in nearly a year in exchange for returning to the bargaining table, where the company is seeking lasting pay cuts that it says are needed to survive the pandemic.The musicians, and most of the Met’s workers, were furloughed in April, shortly after the pandemic forced the opera house to close. Months later, the Met offered the musicians partial pay in exchange for significant long-term cuts, but their union objected. Then the Met softened its position: Since the end of December, it has been offering to pay the musicians up to $1,543 a week on a temporary basis if they agreed to start negotiations. While the union representing the chorus agreed to the deal more than a month ago, the orchestra’s union took longer to accept the deal.On Tuesday, the musicians in the orchestra, which became the last major ensemble in the United States without a deal to receive pandemic pay, agreed to take the offer, according to an email sent by the Met orchestra committee to its members.“We’re very pleased that our agreement with the orchestra has been ratified and that they will begin receiving bridge pay this week,” the Met said in a statement, “along with the start of meaningful discussions towards reaching a new agreement.”The orchestra committee, which represents the players in negotiations, declined to comment. The Met’s relationship with its musicians has been contentious during the pandemic months. Musicians have been frustrated by the extended period without pay, and worried that even when they returned to the opera house, their pay would be significantly reduced.The Met has insisted that economic sacrifices need to be made because of the financial impact of the pandemic, which it says has cost the company $150 million in earned revenues. For its highest-paid unions, the company is seeking 30 percent cuts — the change in take-home pay would be approximately 20 percent, it said — with a promise to restore half when ticket revenues and core donations return to prepandemic levels.Under the deal, musicians will receive up to $1,543 for eight weeks; money they get from unemployment or stimulus payments is deducted from that total. If, after eight weeks, the musicians and the Met have not reached an agreement but the negotiations are productive, the partial paychecks will be extended, according to an email from the Met to the orchestra explaining the offer. The musicians’ labor contract expires at the end of July.The Met offered the same deal to its choristers, dancers, stage managers and other employees who are represented by a different union, the American Guild of Musical Artists. That union accepted the deal at the end of January, and its members have been receiving paychecks for roughly five weeks.The opera company is hopeful that it can start performing for the public in the fall, but opening night will be determined by where the virus and vaccination rates stand, as well as the outcome of the Met’s labor disputes. The company locked out its stagehands in December after their union rejected a proposal for substantial pay cuts.In a note to Met employees sent on Friday, one year after the Met shut its doors, the company’s general manger, Peter Gelb, wrote that there was a “light at the end of the tunnel” because of the accelerated pace of vaccinations that President Biden had announced. Still, Mr. Gelb wrote, the Met needed to “come to terms with the economic necessities” that the pandemic has demanded.“Even before the pandemic, the economics of the Met were extremely challenging and in need of a reset,” Mr. Gelb wrote. “With the pandemic, we have had to fight for our economic survival.” More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in Music

      Report: New York City’s Arts and Recreation Employment Down by 66 Percent

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeBake: Maximalist BrowniesListen: To Pink SweatsGrow: RosesUnwind: With Ambience VideosAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyReport: New York City’s Arts and Recreation Employment Down by 66 PercentThe New York State comptroller’s office details the effects of the pandemic’s devastation and says a full recovery would be made only with government assistance.The arts, entertainment and recreation sector had seen the largest drop of all the parts of the city’s economy, the report says.Credit…David S. Allee for The New York TimesFeb. 24, 2021, 1:59 p.m. ETEmployment in New York City’s arts, entertainment and recreation sector plummeted by 66 percent from December 2019 to December 2020, according to a report released on Wednesday by the New York State Comptroller’s office that detailed the economy’s devastation from the coronavirus and the serious obstacles to recovery.The report from Thomas DiNapoli’s office said that the sector had seen the largest drop of all the parts of the city’s economy. A full comeback, it said, would depend upon significant government assistance.The sector “is a cornerstone of the city’s ability to attract businesses, residents and visitors alike,” the report said. “Yet the sector relies on audiences who gather to take part in shared experiences, and this way of life has been significantly disrupted by the pandemic.”Although nearly all business has been affected by the pandemic, its impact on arts, entertainment and recreation entities has been particularly striking.From 2009 to 2019, employment in the sector — which in this report includes performing arts, spectator sports, gambling, entertainment, recreation, museums, parks and historical sites — grew by 42 percent, faster than the 30 percent rate for total private sector employment.In 2019, according to the report, more than 90,000 people in 6,250 establishments were employed in the arts, entertainment and recreation. Those jobs had an average salary of $79,300 and provided $7.4 billion in total wages. In addition to businesses with employees, the report said, there are a large number of people who were self-employed, including artists and musicians.In February 2020, just before the pandemic shutdown in New York City, nearly 87,000 people were employed in the arts, entertainment and recreation sector there, the report said. Many major institutions announced closures on March 12. A statewide stay-at-home order went into effect on March 22. By April, employment in the sector stood at 34,100 jobs.Budgets at arts and recreation establishments have been “decimated,” the report said, and some organizations and facilities have struggled even as they were able to reopen, saying reduced revenues because of capacity restrictions, as well as diminished ticket sales, have limited income and necessitated budget cuts.Many performing arts venues are still closed. Most Broadway theaters do not expect to reopen until June at the earliest, the report noted, adding that the Metropolitan Opera and the New York City Ballet announced they would not be reopening until September.“Arts and recreation face an uphill climb to recover from the damage wrought,” the report said, adding: “The challenges facing the arts and entertainment sector require direct and impactful support from policymakers to maintain the city’s extensive cultural offerings.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Music

      New York Philharmonic Musicians Agree to Years of Pandemic Pay Cuts

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best MoviesBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest TheaterBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNew York Philharmonic Musicians Agree to Years of Pandemic Pay CutsAnticipating a long road to financial recovery, the orchestra has decided on cuts that will gradually lessen.When the New York Philharmonic’s new contract ends, in September 2024, the players will still be paid less than they were before the pandemic struck.Credit…Vincent Tullo for The New York TimesBy More