Carnegie Hall Opening Gala Canceled Because of Stagehand
Strike
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/02/carnegie-hall-opening-gala-canceled/
They are among the highest-paid performers at Carnegie Hall,
even though they do not play a note: they are the stagehands of Local 1, whose
average total compensation of more than $400,000 a year is more than some of
the hall’s top executives earn. Little happens on Carnegie’s stages without
them.
Now, with scant notice, Carnegie seems to have decided to
take a stand against the powerful union, refusing in contract talks to let the
stagehands extend their sway to an educational wing to be opened next year
above the hall.
The stagehands struck back on Wednesday, calling the first
strike in the history of Carnegie Hall and forcing the cancellation of a
star-studded opening-night gala on Wednesday that was to have featured the
Philadelphia Orchestra and the violinist Joshua Bell playing before a crowd of
well-heeled patrons.
The strike not only silenced America’s
flagship concert hall on what was to have been one of its biggest nights of the
year, but also capped an extraordinary week that underscored the perils facing
classical music in America
in the 21st century.
Another of the city’s cultural mainstays, New York City
Opera, announced its plans to dissolve and file for bankruptcy this week, bringing
70 years of operatic history to an end.
Michael Appleton for The New York Times
The stagehands union picketed on Wednesday outside Carnegie
Hall. The opening-night gala performance was canceled.
In the Midwest, labor
strife cost the Minnesota Orchestra its beloved music director, Osmo Vanska,
who resigned as a lockout of musicians entered a second year.
And the canceled Carnegie concert was supposed to be another
milestone in the comeback of the Philadelphia Orchestra, which emerged from
bankruptcy last year and is generating excitement with its dynamic young
conductor, Yannick Nézet-Séguin. (With Carnegie canceled, the orchestra decided
to play a free concert at Verizon Hall in its hometown.)
Clive Gillinson, Carnegie Hall’s executive and artistic
director, said in a statement that he regretted the inconvenience to
concertgoers and musicians alike.
“We are disappointed that, despite the fact that the
stagehands have one of the most lucrative contracts in the industry, they are
now seeking to expand their jurisdiction beyond the concert hall and into the
new education wing in ways that would compromise Carnegie Hall’s education
mission,” Mr. Gillinson said. “There is no precedent for this anywhere in New York City.”
James J. Claffey Jr., president of the union, Local 1 of the
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, said that negotiations
had been going on for over a year, and that the union wanted its members to
work in Carnegie’s new spaces just as they do in its historic hall. “Carnegie
Hall Corporation has spent or will spend $230 million on its ongoing studio
tower renovation, but they have chosen not to appropriately employ our members
as we are similarly employed throughout the rest of Carnegie Hall,” he said in
a statement.
At issue is the education wing being built as part of the
renovation of Carnegie Hall. It is to have 24 music rooms for practicing,
teaching and holding events for children. The stagehands — who do everything
from moving pianos to unloading instruments from trucks to configuring the
stage for performances — want these new rooms to fall under their purview.
Management, which says the new rooms are educational in nature, not theatrical,
says that the work there can be accomplished by the members of other unions
that cost less. Accepting Local 1’s demand, Carnegie said in a statement, would
“divert significant funds away from the hall’s music education programs and
into stagehand fees.”
Last year’s opening-night gala raised nearly $2.7 million
for Carnegie. This year’s had been set to begin with a cocktail reception at
$1,000 a person, followed by a concert featuring music by Ravel, Saint-Saëns
and Tchaikovsky, and to end with dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria, with tickets
starting at $1,500 a person.
With the concert canceled, the dinner was moved to 6 p.m.
Several dozen union members showed up outside the hotel to pass out leaflets as
patrons in black tie and ball gowns arrived. “Carnegie Hall UNFAIR,” read the
leaflets. “Carnegie Hall’s reputation as one of the finest performance, music
and fine arts venues in the world is largely due to the efforts of the
professional stagehands that we represent,” they said.
Sanford I. Weill, the chairman of the board at Carnegie
Hall, said on Wednesday night at the Waldorf that no other educational
facilities in the city used members of the stagehands’ union, and that using
them in Carnegie’s new educational spaces would divert money from the core
mission.
“What’s happened speaks for itself,” he said. “This is our
most important day for Carnegie Hall, our biggest fund-raising day, and it’s
the first time in 122 years that we don’t have a performance on opening night.”
Local 1 is one of the city’s oldest and most powerful labor
groups. A strike by the union shut down most of Broadway for 19 days in 2007.
Carnegie employs five full-time stagehands, and hires others
part time as needed. Its regular stagehands, who work long days and many nights
and weekends, earn much of their money in overtime. Carnegie’s 2011 tax return
showed that the stagehands were among the organization’s highest-paid
employees: they worked an average of 60 hours a week, the return said, and
earned between $280,000 and $357,000 — with all getting at least an additional
$90,000 in other compensation and benefits. All earned more than Carnegie’s
finance director.
The strike was called after contract talks broke down
Tuesday night. Mr. Claffey, the union’s president, left a message on his
answering machine at the local’s offices at 12:45 a.m. Wednesday: “As of right
now, the strike is on,” he said.
The members arrived at Carnegie at 8 a.m. As Mr. Claffey
stood outside the hall, surrounded by pickets who had brought a large
inflatable rat to make their point, he noted that the union had been working
without a contract for a year. “We’ve never had a job action here since the
hall opened in 1891,” he said, as strikers chanted “Contract now” and “No
stagehands — no show.”
The spectacle of the strike surprised people passing on West 57th Street.
David Bernard, music director of the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony, which is set
to play at Carnegie on Oct. 27, said that he was on his way to the hall to see
if his group’s posters were up yet, and to pick up some tickets, when he saw
the rat. “I could barely get in there because of the picket line,” he said. The
box office was closed.
Carnegie said that the opening-night concert would not be
rescheduled. A live radio broadcast that WQXR had planned was replaced with a
repeat of a broadcast from last year. Carnegie said that it would keep its
remaining concerts on its schedule in hopes that the strike could be resolved.
After the strike was called, negotiations resumed.
Asked if the hall would reopen soon, Mr. Gillinson, Carnegie
Hall’s executive director, said at the Waldorf, “With negotiations, you never
know.” But he added that he planned to stick to his principles. “One thing we
cannot do is compromise,” he said.
Allan Kozinn contributed reporting
Show Is Back at Carnegie, but Without a Settlement
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/carnegie-hall-concert-to-proceed-as-labor-negotiations-continue/
A concert at Carnegie Hall by the American Symphony
Orchestra went on as scheduled Thursday night, a day after a strike by union
stagehands caused the cancellation of the hall’s gala opening concert, which
had been scheduled for Wednesday evening.
Carnegie Hall made the announcement on Thursday afternoon,
saying that the labor dispute had not
been settled, and that talks with the union were continuing. As for future
performances, a statement from the hall said, “All other performances remain on
the schedule pending further updates.”
Though picketing stagehands and sympathetic colleagues from
other union locals marched outside Carnegie for several hours on Thursday
morning, the union, Local 1 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage
Employees, announced in a Twitter post on Thursday afternoon that “after making
significant progress at the table, Local 1 has temporarily pulled down the
Carnegie Hall picket line.”
At issue in the dispute is whether the stagehands union will
have jurisdiction over the new educational spaces that Carnegie plans to open
next year. Discussions about this point have gone on for the last 13 months.
A few hours after the original post, the union added a
reminder: “Carnegie Hall picket line back on. The call is Friday at 8:00 am
SHARP corner of 56th St.
& 7th Ave.”
The concert that was canceled was a performance by the
Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by its new music director, Yannick
Nézet-Séguin, with Joshua Bell as the violin soloist. But although the
performance did not take place, a gala dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria went on as
scheduled, with about 600 patrons in attendance. Tickets were $1,000 for
cocktails, $1,500 for the dinner. In a statement, the hall said it had raised
$3.4 million at the gala.
“What I feel is that the stagehands work in the performance
spaces, but not in educational venues,” Sanford I. Weill, the chairman of the
board at Carnegie Hall, said in an interview on Wednesday evening. “They don’t
work at Juilliard, or any of the other conservatories, or in other schools. To
give them jurisdiction in the educational spaces would just take away money
that should be going to education. There is no precedent for that.”
Clive Gillinson, Carnegie Hall’s executive and artistic
director, also speaking on Wednesday evening, said that he had received
“hundreds of e-mails today; it was very moving.”
He added: “We have to have a sustainable relationship with
the union, one that supports our education programs. These programs are not for
the benefit of the staff — the staff is meant to support the mission. We have
to absolutely stick to our principles and serve music education and the kids
that will benefit from it. The whole notion of creating an educational center
where, instead of the money going to the kids, it goes to the staff, is out of
the question. It’s unnecessary and it’s unprecedented.”
James J. Claffey Jr., president of the union, did not
respond immediately to several messages seeking comment on Thursday.
The American Symphony Orchestra, which had posted a message
on its Web site early Thursday saying that the concert was scheduled to take
place, but advising concertgoers to check for updates, provided that
information about 1 p.m., saying, “This evening’s concert will go on.”
For the orchestra, though, it was an anxious morning. An 11
a.m. rehearsal was rescheduled for 2 p.m., and then put back another hour. It
was not until 12:45 p.m. that Leon Botstein, the ensemble’s music director, got
the word that his musicians would be taking the stage in the evening.
“The American Symphony Orchestra players are fabulous
musicians,” Mr. Botstein said, “but the works we are playing are not repertory
pieces that they’ve been playing around the world, and that just need a quick
run-through at a sound check. We are doing the Antheil ‘Jazz Symphony,’ and the
Copland Organ Symphony, which is almost never done. So the level of anxiety was
quite high.”