Midnight: Peter Gelb starts locking out Met staff
mainThe Metropolitan Opera last night locked out its stagehands after their union refused to accept pay cuts.
Next in line are the musicians.
On the day the New York Philharmonic reached a 4-year wage deal with its musicians, involving a 25% pay cut for 3 years, the Met’s general manager Peter Gelb went for outright confrontation. Gelb wanted a 30% cut, half of which would be restored once box office and donations reach pre-Covid levels, which may be never-never.
Fulltime stagehands earned an average $260,000 in 2019, including benefits, according to the Met.
The musicians, who can see what’s coming, said this: AFM Local 802 President Adam Krauthamer: “Local 802 denounces the lockout by the Metropolitan Opera of the stagehands of IATSE Local 1. We are disappointed that Peter Gelb and Met management are taking advantage of the Covid pandemic to harm and demean these highly-skilled and valuable workers while weakening the cultural treasure that is the Met. The path forward to the Met’s revival should not be at the expense of the very workers who quite literally make the organization function behind the scenes. Taxpayers, private donors and audience members will be disappointed that the Met is taking this short-sighted approach and risking the artistic integrity of the organization. We insist that Peter Gelb and Met management end the lockout immediately and bargain for a fair contract in good faith.”
Stage hands make an average $260K/year?
And the tools they use are made of gold? No surprise there is no money left to pay the artistic staff.
The arguments we always hear are about NY’s cost of life.
Question: what do stage hands in other major NY theaters make?
The hourly wage in most other NYC theaters is about twice that of the Met
The stagehands make Alberich look like a pauper.
Roll in overtime and any seniority and the take-home pay can go a lot higher than $260K. Last I checked, the top Carnegie Hall stagehands bring in around $400K+. The benefits of having a powerful union on your side.
Being a stagehand at an opera house that performs six operas a week and rehearses other operas during the day is much harder work, and requires much more expertise, than being a stagehand at a concert hall.
People just pull numbers out of the air. Its so ridiculous. Let a Met stagehand show you some W2’s im sure its half that number or less for working an 80 hour week. Everyone that puts these numbers out don’t realize they work 80 hour weeks sometimes more
Stagehands make overtime for shifts that can run as long as 17 hours — shifts that include hours of physical exertion and attention to detail, as one wrong move (pulling down a fly too soon, for example) could literally kill someone. Stagehands also frequently end up pulling shifts with only a few hours between, in which case they will sleep at the Met rather than going home. I’d say they need either more money or more people to cover the relentless schedule.
They’re worth it. Many have been practicing to be stagehands since the age of two. While their peers were outside playing in the sunshine and fresh air, they were inside learning how to push flats around.
instead of being a doctor i should have been a stage hand.
Yes because 80 hours of hard labor is easier than being a doctor
Let’s hear it for greedy Gelb using his White privilege! Orchestra is next to be dismantled. Good riddance to those disobeying their White masta P.
Could you explain a little more about how this makes him greedy? Does he personally get a cut of the savings?? Also, for those of us not as woke as you, what does being white have to do with anything? Are most of the stagehands and orchestra members people of color?
“what does being white have to do with anything?”
You are in grade school outside of the US I presume…
Look up #BLM and educate yourself on the importance of black skin color which now supersedes intellect and achievement as well as why it’s essential to hate white people who have seemingly mythical access to everything in life. Oh, and be sure to prop up their openly socialist agenda by way of capitalism in the form of buying their swag. Then donate mindlessly and go read about the unexplainable huge financial deficit where local chapters aren’t receiving any of the “#BLM corporate” funding. Cheers!
You’re either simple-minded or disingenuous to pull out that one sentence while ignoring the context of the rest of the post. I obviously understand the issues around white privilege – in this instance I was questioning the validity of that issue vis-a-vis this particular discussion. And BTW, your third paragraph is devoid of any rational points. Cheers!
Your Republican word-salad is not welcome by the majority left on this board. Go educate yourself about the Democrat party of today before you make uninformed comments as well.
Right on!
Note the use of faux-Southern Black dialect: “masta.”
Whether it’s a lame attempt at humor or an intentional dog whistle, the intent is clear.
I don’t know if this is supposed to be a (lame) attempt at humor but the stage hands are overwhelmingly white – usually Irish Catholic and Italian and virtually all live in the suburbs, usually quite expensive ones. They generally get their jobs through family connections and other forms of nepotism.
And many are Trump supporters as I witnessed in the Met cafeteria in November 2016. Hardly an oppressed class.
As long as it is legal why do you get an opinion on where Stagehands Live?
And as last I checked if they are registered
voters in this country they are free to vote as they wish. Perhaps you’d like to share all your details to be dissemenated by large group of
people with no first hand knowledge of who you are or what you really do.
The average stagehand at the Met earns about 100-140000 dollars a year. But what isn’t said is that they work 60-80 hours a week. So if they want to fabricate what a stagehand makes that means someone owes most of us another 150000 a year for every year we’ve worked there. Essentially the stagehands are working the equivalent of 2 jobs with all the hours they are forced to be there and work. Also forced to work the holidays and on their children’s birthdays and graduations and sporting events. I work at that Met and can assure you stagehands dont make anywhere close to that number unless your a boss.
Wow. Stage hands make more than the musicians in the orchestra.
So all those nerdy guys and girls in high school who were backstage helping out while I practiced 6 hours a day, in the end, were right. What was I thinking?
It gets more confusing: Joseph Wolpe, the MET’s 1990-2006 General Manager, started working at the MET as an apprentice carpenter at 23, after a few years running his own auto mechanic business. Arguably the MET thrived during his days.
Sir David – please continue practising six hours each day. Excellent for nourishment of the soul. Forget the pocket.
Sorry. Too old to buy into the Muse.
SHOW ME THE MONEY!
According to the people that say stagehands make 260000 at the met the orchestra is making double that number
If anything positive comes out of this COVID crisis in the arts, I hope that it is a complete overhaul of the putrid U.S. model for managing arts institutions. It has been and is now approaching the iceberg and its ultimate demise is imminent.
From the governance of their institutions, with its pay-to-play system of by giving a lot of money, you can gain a seat on the board of directors of the orchestra or opera. Competence and experience in the field of arts management is shunned and overlooked in favour of men and women with big check books and often little understanding or experience in the complexities of running an arts organisation. Their vile system of “I have money, therefore I have the power” fails miserably in the arts sector. Of course there are some exceptions, but for the most part I have seen firsthand rich cretins, many with good intentions, overseeing far too many arts institutions in the United States. They in turn hire the CEO of the orchestra or opera based on nothing more than academic credentials and a “track record”. Dialogue between them and the administration is often fraught, as they are far too often not even speaking the same professional language.
The other thing that marks the U.S. system in the arts is the us against them mentality, which pits the administration and the board against the musicians, as we now see with Peter Gelb locking out the musicians in a new twist to this already tragic story.
Then there are the salaries. When will the Americans learn that it is not financially prudent and in the best long-term interest to pay your senior administration and your musicians salaries that are equivalent to Wall Street bankers, with the orchestra/opera CEO paid a seven figure salary and principal musicians paid mid six figure salaries. That would be great if the enterprise was a for-profit organisation, but when you are a non-profit, surviving on donations and gifts of generosity from the donors in the community, then paying salaries equal to the high end of the for-profit sector is both unacceptable and financially dangerous. The entire operation can and will collapse when a crisis arrives, like now.
Also, as people are now all being financially pressed and today they have more donation options, handing over several million to a non-profit institution that then pays its CEO close to 2 million dollars is an outrage and something that will cease to exist in the next decade, as more and more of these U.S. institutions shut down forever.
Keep all of what you just wrote in mind when you (and anyone who agrees with this) vote.
Hint: Republicans support this status quo, or want to make it worse.
In addition: why should Wall Street and Fortune 500 CEOs make so much money? Or other Wall Street types?
When I was young, Wall Street and Fortune 500 CEOs (several of whom were neighbors) made enough money to have a nice home in the suburbs.
Now they make enough money to have palatial estates à la the Gilded Age, with their own private planes, helicopters, yachts, and even private islands.
Yet many of their workers must work several minimum wage jobs, and also have to be on food stamps to put both food on the table and a roof over their heads.
That is without getting to your legitimate question about non-profit CEOs and their salaries.
And yet the Orange Enemy of the People cut their already-low taxes, thereby driving up the country’s debt and deficit to unheard-of levels, and additionally burdened the less wealthy.
Why do we as a society tolerate this?
Well put. Totally agree with you. These corporations, billionaires and millionares are extremely greedy and looking to turn this country into China where 1% has everything and the 99% live like animals on pennies an hour. Only getting worse. They don’t want to pay working people a decent salary so they could live. There is basically no more middle class. Today you either have money or not
Unions stifle competition and fattens the fat ones while starving the lean ones. $260K can easily maintain 4 blue collar workers gainfully employed, who would gladly his share of that salary.
For non-U.S. readers, “including benefits” means a figure roughly 1.5 times the salary. So $260,000 would be $173,333.
Still a ridiculous and obscene amount of money for American stage hands, whatever way you put it.
why bother to go to university in the states when
you can become a stage hand.
Actually, you can only become a stagehand if your dad or uncle happens to be in the union.
An awful lot of dedicated Stagehands across this country got their start in University Theater programs
I believe that benefits are closer to 48% of total compensation.
Part of the reason for this, is that the U.S. continues to refuse to provide universal health insurance/health care.
william iam glad i live in the uk. i have life changing injuries being hit by a car. 6 months in hospital. i have not paid one english penny
this cost the health service thousands of pounds.
the staff were wonderful.
I’m sorry that you were injured. I’m glad that you received very good care, and didn’t have to pay a penny for any of it (at least up front–I’m sure that your taxes cover your share).
Thousands upon thousands of Americans declare bankruptcy each year, merely because they cannot pay their medical bills. This can include people who have some form of insurance.
Universal health care/insurance in the U.S. is long overdue.
Once the New York Phil musicians showed they were not willing to fight for anything whatsoever this was bound to happen. They have started a chain reaction. Both managements have the same lawyers. Luckily the met will not roll over like New York Phil. Stay strong!
The Phil’s contract is not terribly different from those of other top US orchestras – Boston, Chicago, LA, San Fran, etc. How would you know that the Phil’s musicians “were not willing to fight?” Meanwhile, one-third of the MET’s musicians have left town, having no choice in their complete wage non-payment since March. Better 75% than nothing.
How do you know they were willing to fight?
You are incorrect about the other contracts. Look more closely. It is a terrible contract willingly endorsed by inexperienced leadership dumped on a frightened membership that was not properly informed.
You are incorrect about the MET. That was a sensationalist headline. Some people have left to stay in a second home or with family just as many others have during COVID that were furloughed. If the orchestra returned next month they would all be here.
It would be shocking for them to take a deal like that without a fight.
“How do you know they were willing to fight?”
Because I know personally members of both their orch. comm. and negotiating comm. including their orch. comm. chair who’s been chair for many years. Inexperienced? Are you some outsider whose lack of knowledge is obvious here? Are you able to look up the contract settlements of the other orchestras I mentioned?
This! NY’s committee completely rolled over and now the effect will be felt throughout the orchestral world.
You’ve evidently not heard of Force Majeure in the Phil’s and other orchestra labor agreements whereby management can cancel contracts, payments and benefits at will.
So any group with a force majeure clause forfeits any leverage for effective negotiation whatsoever?
That’s insane nonsense.
DB wouldn’t have lasted a week with the bad press from a lockout with the pricey new hall and a vaccinated audience on the horizon. There is no reason by the time opening night in a new hall happens with a full audience and the pandemic in the rear view mirror that some musicians will still be at less than 50 percent of salary let alone 75.
A better deal would have been cut even by now had they been locked out.
The $260k number is a factor Gelb likes to use for shock value. That includes benefits. Read the article. Benefits are 51% of that number. $150k is not a lot in NYC.
Most musicians even in top orchestras in US, yes, including in New York, earn much less than that. Plus they studied for 20+ years to get to where they are. Maybe you want to claim stagehands are “high skill” lol, don’t fool yourself. 30% wage cut is what many musicians already agreed to, but yes, in your opinion furniture movers are untouchable.
By contrast virtually none of the stagehands have anything more than a high school diploma.
Union Stagehands serve an Apprenticeship
where they learn their craft both scholastically and hands on.
In an industry that is constantly evolving
and require even long time Journeymen/women to keep up to date.
That’s not just mean spirited Tom, it’s based on ignorance. I know stagehands with degrees in Biology, Finance, Marketing, Political Science, History, Engineering, Journalism, and I could really go on but the point is made. These examples may be the exception, but their numbers are many. Most of them apprenticed as stagehands while going to, and paying for college simultaneously. Post graduation resulted in many finding more opportunity and security in the stagehands union than elsewhere. Some left the business to pursue their degrees. You won’t find one of them who left the industry ever refer to their stagehand brothers as “lesser” individuals.
To make the absurd reference that stagehands are “uneducated” is contemptuous. Many of the men and women you speak of who have no college degrees are intelligent, skilled and educated people, all of who contribute mightily to the entertainment industry.
I have a four year bachelor’s degree. The five years I apprenticed in the stagehands union were unequivocally more difficult and challenging than my college years.
Again, absolutely bollocks. I did both a music degree and worked as a stage hand in one of the world’s most renowned opera houses. Whilst the latter provided me with much more money than the former, and with some absolutely great colleagues, a person with 0 academic qualifications whatsoever could’ve done equally good a job. And, by the way, stage management procedure ensured no one’s life was on the line. There is not reason stage hands should earn more than musicians, other than the strength of their union.
stagehands work by the hour and are paid by the hour. When most people are in their pajamas watching cable TV, surfing the internet, reading, or spending quality time with their families, stagehands are at work. When those same people are just waking up and changing out of their pajamas, the stagehands are already back at work. This is why they make the amount of money they do. If management didn’t need the same stagehands to work deep into the night and return early in the morning, they would have figured it out over 100 years ago! To claim otherwise is pure flapdaddle.
I too worked several years in a famous opera house. I most certainly respected the stage managers and other managers regarding their sweeping contributions to all the opera productions, but to claim the stagehands aren’t the ones with the responsibility of safety on their hands is what is bollocks! Stagehands are often pressed into performing scene and set changes in very tight time frames. Are those the “procedures that ensure no one’s life is on the line”?
Stagehands are the ones hanging and moving the thousands of pounds of equipment that floats above everybody’s head. Stagehands are the ones who open up the back of 53′ semi-trailers and turn a mass of tangled steel and hardware into the visions they were designed to be.
I’m not sure why someone was compelled to turn this into a discussion comparing stagehands to musicians and vice versa? Stagehands and musicians don’t do that.
The ignorance displayed above is appalling. The Met is a rich well-endowed institution that has entered into contracts that it thought were fair several years ago. And now, shades of Carnegie and Frick, it wants to not only tear up those contracts, but lockout and fire eventually employees who don’t agree to what Boss Gelb demands. That some of the correspondents find the salaries too rich is either class snobbery or envy from below. They were ok for the Met and the unions before, and tracking what it takes to live in New York City these days. I would urge writers to focus on the authoritarian shift in Met management under Gelb and his complete disinterest in working with his company in any collaborative way.
Oh, and what has Gelb’s program been? Try nothing new, shut down the house, and cry poor.
The contracts you refer to did not assume that work would be forced to stop for a year or two at least because of an historic pandemic. If Goldman Sachs lost almost all of its revenue for that long you would see a lot of their partners with much-reduced income and also a lot of ex-partners.
Agree with you re: the musicians but not the stagehands who by choice mostly live in upscale but far less expensive suburbs in Long Island, New Jersey etc. And have very few student loans unlike trained musicians.
Again Mr. Phillips why do you get an opinion on where people live? Is it cheaper to live close to the MET? and Why does having or not having student loans become relevant?
The comments here show a lot of ignorance about what stage hands actually do and the cost of living in New York. 17 hour work days moving dangerous and heavy pieces of stage machinery is not an easy job. Remember too that if you miss a note in the violin section nobody dies. If you don’t properly bolt together a bridge on-stage, there are for more serious consequences. Also note that in addition to the 260k number including benefits, it is an average. Some make far more, rightfully so for those those whose responsibility it is to safely oversee 4-5 productions and 6-7 shows per week on stage, but many make far less. Not so much given the rent in New York.
They work 17 hour days because they block the hiring of additional people which would cut into their overtime salaries for working those long hours. Also, it is gullible to believe that every one of those set movers holds lives in their hands – those things are the responsibility and jobs of just a small number of unit and department heads. Stop acting like these people are brain surgeons and/or great martyrs for the sake of art.
Don’t worry, they’re probably just trashy Trump voters and not worth a farthing anyway. What would they know? They haven’t read Foucault at university and know nothing what being a real bien pensant is all about. Probably dull dinner party companions too – even if they were ‘lucky’ enough to be invited to the best tables.
No logic or understanding of live theatre in your comment. Very much tone deaf. I assume you think the ballerina or opera singer who nails it during rehearsal should be replaced by another ballerina or opera singer for the performance? Of course you don’t want to block the hiring of additional ballerinas and opera singers right? What difference does it make that the talent performing the rehearsal isn’t the same talent performing when thousands of patrons are in attendance? Anyone should be able to come in stone cold and the sky is the limit, right? Wrong. Musicians rehearse, then perform. Actors rehearse, then perform. Singers and ballerinas rehearse, then perform. Stagehands work rehearsals, then work those performances.
Most (not all) of the comments here fail to take into consideration how dangerous live theatre can be. Safety is always a deep concern. Every crew member performs duties responsible for the safety of other crew members and talent, not just the department heads. In reality, the department heads are less involved in safely executing carpentry, electrical, automation, rigging (fly), audio, and property cues than the crew members under their supervision.
The performing arts are very much misunderstood by most people outside of the industry. Show business in general is very much misunderstood. All the glamour perceived, is by those who never step foot on a stage.
By the way folks, stagehand is one word, not two.
You know, I’ve worked on every continent in the world and the one, the only, place that I’ve seen the actions of a stage hand endanger the well being of a person on stage is at the MET. Dear God those men were incompetent.
” If you don’t properly bolt together a bridge on-stage, there are for more serious consequences.” How do their salaries compare with those of bridge builders and assemblers of rockets?
How many hours per week do those people work?
i actually do have lives in my hands as an MD , but there is no physicians union, so i make less than some of the stage crew. and cant bring my nephew on as an apprentice.
Adam Krauthamer is hardly whom we want to be speaking for musicians. He’s been no help.
FIRE GELB! What made and makes the MET are its people, its wonderful, creative, dedicated people. Gelb is a jerk with NO taste who spent his life envying and hating Levine and wanting to foist his lousy taste on everyone. NOW, when ordinary people (and while he waived his “salary” he had plenty of financial resources others do not) are desperate, he wants to coerce the very asset that makes the MET. He’s a Union buster, and the real solution is to take that “emergency fund” and dedicate it to paying the full wages and insurance of the present and laid off personnell. FIRE GELB!
Full wages? On which planet are you residing? Don’t you know that many orchestras agreed to wage cuts? Unions can be a good thing, but in US they are totally out of control, and people who suffer these days are the actual workers that those unions are supposed to protect. They could have been paid at least something in the meantime, but because of stubbornness of the union they get nothing. Do the money grow on trees in your opinion? (Especially during a pandemic)
Always nice to see that everyone has an opinion on Stagehands Salaries.
It is Mr. Gelb’s and other management’s way to shock the public into thinking they are the victims.
Stagehands wages and benefits vary from city to city.
But the work doesn’t. At times it is easy other times it is incredibly strenuous and unnerving quite often lives are at
stake. a mistimed que and someone is injured. if you are at
a theater or concert look up. Anything hanging there, any moving part of the show has been put there by a stagehand. Do you think that tons of weight should be hung over your head or the actors and musicians heads
should be done by the untrained? By the lowest bidder?
It is not always a matter of life and death but it is always
the mission to present a show seamlessly. Stage hands
do their work so that you never know they are there.
To take the creative Ideas and concepts of designers and artists and make them reality.
I personally Know the members of a world class Orchestra.
I’ve watched the hard work that the Musicians do in able to perform flawlessly They put in many hours of training
as students and then as Professionals.
Stagehands also put in a lot of Hours they are there long before the shows start and long hours after.
Especially in Repertory houses. Come in in the morning
and set up for the morning rehearsal, take that down
set up the next. Then reset for that evenings show
work the show and then either work after or at the very least wait until the Audience leaves and shut the Theater down. There is a lot of sacrifice as a Stagehand, Time being the biggest. You miss an awful lot of family events
because dedication to this business requires that you work nights and weekends, to be willing and available to work
24/7/365.
There is a physical toll, heavy lifting, random injuries,
there is nothing uniform about the work they do and
how they have to go about it.
Stagehands have the same financial commitments that everyone else does. Mortgages, utilities, food & etc.
Live entertainment has been shut down since March and
it was already going to be a long hard winter without
someone trying to take the hope of a return to normal
away.
Mr Gelb is using this Pandemic kneecap
hard working Artists, Musicians, theater staff and Stagehands.
It is shameful.
Refreshing to hear from someone on this thread who’s opinion is based on experience.
Many of us speak from experience. Stage hands are no more important than anyone else involved in the putting on of productions.
What stagehands do is inarguably vital, but it is hourly labor and (should be) compensated as such. What musicians and performers do is provide the actual performance. One is craft, the other art.
100% correct.
In my opinion the Met’s fundraising capability would be immeasurably improved if Gelb were gone. Hello!!! The money is there!!!
Guess they’re missing Levine right about now. He would have made sure the musicians and stage-hands got paid.
Wrong. He never took part in any labor-related negotiations and was temperamentally incapable of handling any sort of conflict, as demonstrated time and time again, especially during the Kathleen Battle fiasco.
Disappointing to see so many pot-shots at the income of the stagehands. People’s annual income depends a lot on what profession they chose a long time ago and how well they managed to rise within it. There are a lot of mediocre lawyers making far more than the stagehands while contributing less to the good things in life, but it’s not mocked because we just sort of think that’s normal (and it is). There are also a lot of schoolteachers contributing at least as much as the stagehands and lawyers but making a lot less. Life is full of disparities.
The stagehands are decently well-paid middle-class professionals in a demanding line of work in a high-cost city. The question at the moment is whether Gelb will break the union or the union will break Gelb, and it will be very interesting to see how it plays out.
Why bother offering them anything? In this time, who has the real bargaining power? Take it or leave it. And, if the world ever recovers, plenty of folks in need of a job whether it be stagehands, musicians, opera singers, etc. Truth or no?
Dear Becker, Are you willing to give up 30%
of your income in solidarity with Mr Gelb?
So given that 51% of the $260,000 number represents benefits that would make the average pay $127,400. Peter makes $1.5 million in salary, so the average stagehand makes less than 8% of Peter’s salary, with an average work week (during the opera season) of about 65-70 hours. Does that make sense to anyone???
Yes, it does. Do the stage hands oversee every aspect of the operations and financing of that institution, or just what piece of set is supposed to go where and when?
A stagehand makes 260K a year?!? That’s more than a public school music teacher in NYC typically makes in 3 years. What is wrong with this picture?
You’re right. A lot is wrong with it, and they’re being greedy.
Think of the people who ultimately pay their salaries: the donors. Several of these donors make 1000 times or more than that salary.
That $260k / year number is nonsense – maybe a dozen guys at the Met make that, including their pension, annuity, and health insurance, and they’re working 80 hours a week to get it. The average pay at the Met is around $33/hr, and most hands don’t get 40 hrs a week. Do the math, that’s maybe $60k / year. If you’re a head, you might be making $45 or $50 / hr. To hit $260k you’d need to work 80 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. Nobody is taking home that much, not even the heads. Even if they’re taking home $150k / year, that’s not alot in NYC.
Peter Gelb makes millions a year, his admins make almost as much. We know who the crooks are here.
Do you raise the money necessary to finance the institution that pays the wages of hundreds of employees? If not, perhaps you should learn the skills required to do that and then you could be earning millions yourself because, believe me, it’s not an easy job!