Met musicians show Gelb $31m savings
mainMusicians of the Metropolitan Opera have submitted an 84-page document, outlining what they say are the multiple shortcomings of Peter Gelb’s management.
They maintain that the Met can restore its fortunes and maintain present wage levels by a number of judicious measures. The largest involve a reduction in the number of new productions and efficiencies in scheduling, rehearsals and overtime payments.
We have not yet studied the full document. Here is the union’s summary:
New York, NY–Friday, July 25, 2014–Local 802, American Federation of Musicians, and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra musicians today have commenced negotiations with Met Opera management including General Manager Peter Gelb. The union and the musicians released the attached report detailing the failed management and flawed artistic vision of Gelb during his 8-year tenure at the helm of the Met. The report analyzes the dismal reception of Gelb’s expensive new productions by opera critics and patrons and also recommends specific strategies the Met could employ to save $20 Million annually by curtailing Gelb’s lavish spending and realizing scheduling efficiencies.
Gelb has stated in the press that the Met is facing financial ruin and possible bankruptcy, while refusing to provide the musicians, the media or the public any evidence of such a crisis. He has announced that he must impose draconian cuts of over $30 Million, yet has refused to substantiate/document the reasons. No one yet knows why Gelb is asking for over $30 Million in cuts when his reported deficit is only $2.8 Million in the context of a $327 million annual budget.
What is known, however, is that under Gelb the Met’s labor costs have remained flat, while the Met Opera budget has increased by nearly 50% ($105 Million). This is in large part due to Gelb’s overspending on critically panned, unpopular productions, as well as poor scheduling, inferior marketing and extensive management waste. The musicians are in favor or new and artistically daring productions but want to see them managed expertly, whereby the Met is able to achieve artistic success while living within their budget.
Bravo!!
Provided all the numbers are correct, this is an excellent analysis of the statistics, (I wish the Greek Ministry of Finances would do such a clear and clean presentation- pause for a sigh… and continue), plus the suggestions for solution are very reasonable.
As a huge supporter of the Met-Orchestra, I wish them good luck ,strength and all the best.
Posted this on the other thread earlier…
The proposed savings are summarized on page 84.
Total Cost Savings: $19.46M
Pay cut (non-soloists, stagehands union and music staff): $3.06M – reduction in overtime pay rate
All the rest: $16.4M – use of covers instead of star replacements; less overtime operas; shorter rehearsals; 5 new prods only, more efficiently managed; spend less on trucking/storage, investment/legal mgmt, and travel of non-employees
Plus $11.6M more in box office revenues from selling more tickets by lowering ticket prices.
So their give back is $3.06M. No mention of benefit cuts or any other work rule changes.
With a week to go before their contracts expire, it’s an interesting bargaining position to take.
You cannot budget for an $11M+ increase in ticket sales – an auditor or board of directors should never accept that. It’s irresponsible budget practice.
They should stick to focusing on inefficienies – there’s ground to be gained there.
Reducing new productions is silly…as a Met goer, I refuse to see another rehash of stale product like La Boheme and Aida……if I’m flying to NYC and paying prices for good seats, give me something worth going to.
If there’s good faith on both sides, they need to focus on making great opera and realizing both sides must have giving points.
The many charts and numbers in the document are very interesting. They would be more convincing if they weren’t prepared by people with such strongly vested interests. To make this worse, very little documentation is given. Especially important are the charts considering cost of living adjustments. These evaluations can be very subjective and pushed to extremes to make a point. I strongly suspect they are exaggerated a bit.
One number even in the union document struck me. The difference in the number of overtime operas between the Met and ROH, Covent Garden, and Paris Opera was less than 3%. And yet I would guess that the overtime costs at the Met were far higher.
One also has to wonder about the strategy of presenting this document only one week before the proposed lockout. These issues should have been presented long ago. The purpose seems oriented more toward PR than actual negotiation. I haven’t yet read the Met’s response.
At a first glance, I also noticed numbers for base pay, but not for the actual compensation taken home which would include overtime payments. The numbers for OT are crucial to the debate. One wonders why the musicians are being rather quiet on this point. (At the same time, I know what a drag it is to play long operas.)
Entirely agree that putting forward the figures and arguments at the eleventh hour smacks of opportunism – although we may not know what has been going on behind closed doors prior to this event.
But I do not agree it is fair to include overtime payments in assessing average earnings. Very little overtime is a direct result of actions of the musicians (or other Union members working in the Met). Management has total control over overtime, either through its planning or its inefficiency – or both. It seems clear from various reports that the management of the Met has been exceedingly neglectful of the amount of overtime which is likely to be incurred when it makes its artistic, casting and repertoire decisions at the earliest planning stage.