The High Cost of Luxury

Out front in the red plush seats, the Metropolitan Opera often gives off the suggestions of high living--the rustle of silks, the lambent touch of mink, a bouquet of costly perfumes. But the $4,500,000-a-year business of putting on the opera, a money-losing enterprise at best, always is a matter of shirtsleeves and hard heads, of penny-pinching and tough bargaining. Last month the Met's money-harried management threatened to cancel next winter's entire season because the managers and the artists' union could not get together on contract terms. But last week, at the last moment, the Met was saved by one of the soundest last-ditch devices of labor negotiations.

The point of contention was a demand by the American Guild of Musical Artists, i.e., the singers and dancers, for salary increases and job security. Management refused to budge, particularly because its contracts with the musicians' and stagehands' unions specified that they could be reopened if any of the Met's other employees get a raise. After nine weeks of negotiations, and less than twelve hours before a deadline beyond which the Met felt it could not go if it was to have adequate financing for the new season, Al Manuti, president of Local 802 of the Musicians' Union, stepped in to referee the dispute.

His method was that favored by U.S. labor conciliators when all else has failed. The disputing parties were asked to sit in separate rooms beyond earshot of angry voices while President Manuti scampered between them. After seven hours he persuaded the Met to give its choristers a raise to $2.55 an hour for all rehearsal time after the first 15 hours each week, to reduce from 21 to 16 hours a week the rehearsal time that Met ballet dancers are required to put in without pay. The Met also threw in a job-security provision for the chorus and dancers. At week's end it seemed certain that the Met curtains will open on schedule.

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