ABT dancers form union - American Ballet Theatre; Independent Artists of America

Dance Magazine, Dec, 1994 by Robert Johnson

NEW YORK CITY--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.

Principal stage manager Lori Rosecrans, principal dancer Michael Owen, and corps de ballet dancer Griff Braun were the catalysts behind the move, and Owen and Rosecrans are now president and vice-president of the new union, respectively.

According to Owen, the break with AGMA was a long time in coming. "It goes back fifteen years or more," he says, recalling a conflict with Robert Jaffe, the AGMA lawyer who was supposed to represent ABT's dancers in contract negotiations in 1976. Owen remembers that the AGMA lawyer at that time was unwilling to help the dancers to improve their lot, taking the attitude that "we didn't deserve any more because we hadn't gone to college."

For the next round of contract negotiations, in 1979, the dancers hired their own attorney, Leonard Leibowitz, who came recommended to them by the Kennedy Center Orchestra. Leibowitz has represented ABT's dancers ever since, and Owen explains that, with his help, the dancers have made major gains.

Among the benefits that the ABT dancers have won for themselves over the years are vacation pay, single room rates on tour, dental insurance, additional medical coverage for chiropractors and massage, supplemental unemployment benefits, a job security clause, a more flexible pension plan, and--important for unionists--the right to refuse to cross a legally valid picket line.

"We finally gained the respect of management, not just as dancers and artists, but also as intelligent human beings who deserve a reasonable life-style," Owen says. He adds that in many cases ABT's contracts have set precedents, and that some benefits won by ABT have since been incorporated into AGMA's "national basic" contract, for companies with forty dancers or fewer. In other areas, however, the new union's founders say that the ABT contract remains superior to AGMA's national basic contract.

According to Rosecrans, the dancers have done even better since breaking with AGMA. They will retain their previous basic contract and will now try to improve upon it. She proudly reports that IAA's health package with Prudential, for example, offers more benefits than the AGMA Health Fund yet costs the employer less money. "Prudential came in with a rate that was under what the employer was currently paying to AGMA," says Rosecrans, "so we were able to add benefits. We added some life insurance; we added accidental death and dismemberment; we added an eye-care plan; we added a prescription card that will allow people to get prescription drugs at a much lower cost. It's a fabulous health plan, and, even adding those benefits, it's still coming in under what the employer was paying."

The founders of IAA claim that they are not hostile to AGMA and are urging ABT's dancers to retain their AGMA membership even though they have joined IAA. For the time being the new union's leaders are not actively recruiting other companies for IAA, though expansion is a definite possibility for the future. "We're in the midst of negotiating our own collective bargaining agreement now," says Rosecrans. "We feel like we have to get up and running, get our own house in order, and then we're hoping to broaden our membership beyond ABT."

A dedicated unionist, Rosecrans professes that she and other dancers who have served on AGMA's board of governors tried to effect change from within that organization before taking the decision to strike out on their own. "I have worked very hard at AGMA," she says. "I've been on many, many committees, so I can sleep at night knowing that I tried to work within. I believe AGMA is trying to make some positive changes now, but for us it was a little too late."

According to Owen, "over the period of years, numbers of dancers from ABT tried very hard to effect change, and it fell on deaf ears."

Although the founders of IAA had felt that AGMA had been inattentive to the needs of ABT's dancers for many years, the final straw, as Rosecrans says, was AGMA's refusal to pay any part of attorney Leibowitz's fee this year. This was particularly galling because ABT's dancers have lost several weeks of work during the past two years as a result of the company's financial crisis. "We were paying an average of $50,000 to $60,000 a year in dues to AGMA," explains Rosecrans. "Plus, on top of that, we're paying our attorney. I think we felt that we weren't really getting our money's worth." Each union member paid AGMA thirty-nine dollars twice a year, plus two percent of his or her weekly paycheck in dues.