50 replies to this topic

[vrsfanatic]

Quote

...ABT recently voted to join AGMA so when they draw and ratify a contract it should be available online, probably next fall or winter.

ABT had been a member of AGMA however left AGMA, forming their own union years ago. I am not clear on the history of when it joined and the exact year it left AGMA. My guess is 1980 something when it left AGMA. I can still see the photo of the dancers carrying picket signs in the NYTimes. It is interesting to read that they have voted to return to AGMA under an administration that voted to leave it.

Oh the circle of life!  

[Mme. Hermine]

I remember that too, and thought the time frame was earlier, but this comes from a December 1994 article by Robert Johnson in Dance Magazine:

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The dancers and stagehands of American Ballet Theatre (ABT) have made a daring move that is sure to be recorded in the annals of the labor movement in the United States of America. Taking their fate into their own hands, the dancers have broken with the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) to form their own union, Independent Artists of America (IAA).

The change was made following an election last summer, in which the members of ABT's bargaining unit voted to leave AGMA and join IAA. The vote was thirty-eight for IAA, versus three for AGMA, with fifteen votes contested. Fifty-six members of the seventy-five-member bargaining unit participated in the election, which was held the week after ABT's Metropolitan Opera season closed in June.

[vrsfanatic]

Well gollybee! Now I am getting old. Funny, I thought my late husband was still with ABT at the time of the strike, but in 1994 we were not in the US at all.  

[ggobob]

My memory is that in 1980 or so the ABT dancers went on strike...that was when the Labor Day march was led by danceers and the photo appeared in the Times.    There was a lot of grumbling that the union didn't support the dancers to the level expected.  

Later the dancers decided to form their own union.  It was the 1980s action that began the upward climb in salaries, per diems, etc.  I seem to remember that another item on the agenda was the care/cleaning of costumes.  At one point the dancers reps hung costumes in the room during bargaining and the session ended early because of the power of the smell.

[vrsfanatic]

Thank you for that memory!   I do recall that my late husband was still a member of AGMA in 1991, his final year with ABT, so the change in unions must have been after that. I had confused the two events.  

[bart]

Thanks to Ed McPherson and others for reviving this thread.  I'd like to thank sz as well, for including information about one of the smaller companies.

I'm not suprised by the high earning potential of the top principals of New York's leading companies -- or the protections and guarantees that lower-ranked dancers in these companies are now achieving.   They dserve it all -- and mroe.

It's the many dancers in smaller companies that worry me.  Such companies (and there are many of them) not only have difficulty raising funds -- they have to try to raise funds consistently, year after yeer, which is a requirement for long-term budgeting commitments.

Any information (official and verifiable, of course) that you can give us about the position of dancers in these less prominent, less financially secure companies would be appreciated!