Wednesday, December 09, 2020
IATSE Statement on Met’s Lockout of Local One Stagehands
IATSE Cares: On Monday, Metropolitan Opera management announced that it plans to lock out union stagehands represented by IATSE Local One at midnight. These workers have been furloughed since April, and the Met’s management is demanding these workers take an extremely unreasonable 30% reduction of earnings for an indefinite period of time, and half of that (15%) reduction “in perpetuity” in exchange for short term relief payments.
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3 comments:
Once again the blog comes in and helps me keep in the know about industry issues. The first thing that I personally found jarring about this article had nothing to do with the content, but it was quite shocking to see a group of unmasked people huddled together with a save the met sign. I’m not sure when this photo was taken but it was quite strange seeing people so close together. Though I am no expert about IATSE or the Met’s coffers, I am pretty sure the Met’s coffers are running out and I’m sure with not many working IA members their coffers are possibly dwindling. This article frankly makes sense as the Met has canceled their whole season this year (prior to Broadway announcing a longer shut down that probably will be extended…see articles about vaccine distribution timelines and difficulty getting people vaccinated). Matthew Loeb’s quote about how the union refuses to let the Met exploit the pandemic “in order to erode the standards we worked so hard to establish in the first place” seems a little harsh as a global pandemic isn’t something the Met predicted or wants and I’m sure they didn’t want to make these pay cuts. I do think locking out the local one-stagehands is wrong but I don’t know if the pay cuts necessarily were avoidable. The thing that confuses me is that why is the Met paying these Stagehands currently or is this article talking about future contracts when shows resume?
Ahh the met. I love going to shows at the Met and I can not wait to do so again. I think the person who needs to be locked out here is the General Manager. Per the article, he has mismanaged the budget for several years now but keeps shifting the blame onto the technical crew. Without this crew there would be no Met. I’m sure the GM thinks he can find talented stagehands, electricians, and carpenters for a lot less that what he is paying out now, but he won’t get the same level of quality nor dedication that these union members provide. Use a subpar crew and you get subpar results and that will result in a loss of ticket sales at the box office and the refusal of some top talent to sing on that grand stage. I think the Board needs to take a hard look at the office of the GM and start making cuts there.
The Met wants concessions in pay moving forward. In perpetuity.
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