The company’s general manager said in a meeting with staff on Friday that Metropolitan Opera has offered to start paying many employees who have been without pay since April in exchange for a new union contract included in the long-term pay cut.
Two months after the curtains announced they would not participate again until the fall of 2021, MET general manager Peter Galbe said in a video call with MET employees that the company was ready to cut deals with the union, meaning its members would receive partial. Catch payments for epidemic periods: Employees will have to agree to a 30 percent reduction in wages, while Matt’s office will be re-established in half after office fees return to pre-epidemic levels.
Mr Galbe predicted that ticket sales would remain sluggish for many years even after the epidemic subsided, citing a recent study that said New York City was unlikely to reach its pre-epidemic epidemic by 2025. He said another factor is that Matt’s audience tends to age, meaning they will be more hesitant to return to the 3,800-seat opera para house.
“To get Matt back on his feet, we’re all going to have to make financial sacrifices and sacrifices,” Mr. Galby said in a zoom call, which was watched live by more than 500 people.
About 1,500 full-time matte employees, including his orchestra and choir, have been flooded without pay since April. For many, they will start receiving payroll again, which will be 70 percent of their base salary and will cost 500 1,500 a week.
But unions will have to agree to new contracts that will reduce their workers’ household wages, largely by a series of changes in labor rules, by 30 percent, significantly higher than their base wages.
The union, which works with MAT, is opposed to granting other exemptions that could affect workers after the most severe impact of an epidemic, and for agreeing to cost-cutting measures, the management accused it of taking advantage of the outbreak. .
“Matt’s opportunistic approach seeks to legislate our agreement to end this crisis legally,” the executive director of the American Guild Musf Artists, which represents the company’s mass weddings, stage directors and dancers, said in a statement. On friday.
Mr Agent said his union members had “no interest in selling their futures for short-term relief.”
The epidemic is rampant in arts institutions across the country, and the country’s largest performing arts institution has not been able to save even the Mets. Matt’s finances were in jeopardy even before the virus hit: his annual budget is 300 300 million a year, and he earns less than a third of that from the sale of b-box-office fees, leaving him heavily dependent on donors. The company has suffered more than મિ 150 million in losses due to the shutdown, and in September it announced that it was canceling its entire 2020-21 season, indicating that the losses were only initial.
A Mate spokesman declined to say what kind of changes to the rules of work are under discussion as the company is in the midst of union negotiations.
Part of the union’s opposition to the requested waiver is that half of the pay cut will be reinstated as soon as the box office fee is recharged, which could easily take years.
Mail’s said office fees were estimated to make 88 88 million in the 2019-20 season before being cut short by the epidemic. Mr. Galeb said, and the company projects that its next season will take only $ 49 to start in the fall of 2021. Million. Under his proposal, whenever the sale of B-box-office fees is recovered, employees will be paid 15 per cent less than before the outbreak.
