Opera lovers everywhere are dismayed by management’s recent decision to warn the Metropolitan Opera’s employees of an impending lockout. At best, this is a threat meant to weaken Met employees at the negotiating table; at worst, it is an indication that management has no intention of bargaining in good faith.
The artists, workers, and craftspeople of the Met are its product. We play in the pit and sing onstage; we build, transport, and light the sets; we create costumes and makeup; we give tickets at Will Call, accept tickets at the door, keep people safe while in the house, and so much more. Repeated assertions from management that salaries and benefits accounting for two-thirds of the budget is “unsustainable” are disingenuous. Management’s insistence that audiences are either dying off or no longer interested in the art form is troubling, as companies in Chicago, Vienna, Houston, and London, are reporting increased attendance, donations, and enthusiasm for opera.
Since 2006, the budget of the Met has grown by over 50%, while employees’ base compensation has barely kept pace with inflation. Lavish new productions have cost an average of nearly two-thirds more than those premiered less than ten years ago. The MET Orchestra Musicians have proposed cost-saving measures, including reductions in overtime spending, that would reduce the budget by over $30 million per year.
Please join us in encouraging Met Opera management to engage in good-faith negotiations and avert a lockout at one of New York City's preeminent cultural institutions. Say No to a lockout and Yes to a Met Opera season!
Why is this important?
A lockout and a cancelled Met Opera season would be devastating to the artists, craftspeople, and other workers who make the Met Opera one of the world's finest cultural institutions. It would also harm businesses in New York City's cultural sector and the Lincoln Center area that depend on the Metropolitan Opera for their livelihoods. We believe the Met’s problems are solvable without a cancelled season. We wish the Met to remain an engine of the NYC cultural and tourism economy—and to continue to thrill audiences young and old for decades to come.
