Things Get Crazy In Atlanta

The 10/4/14 edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) published an article by Howard Pousner that includes an exclusive interview with Woodruff Arts Center (WAC) Governing Board Chairman Douglas Hertz. The WAC serves as the 501(c)3 under which the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO) conducts business; consequently, even though the ASO maintains its own board of directors and executive committee, it does not ratify labor agreements, does not manage its own budget, and all of the ASO’s executive ranks are WAC employees.

As it relates to the labor dispute, the WAC executive committee is the decision making authority responsible for all bargaining, initiating the lockout, and ultimately agreeing to terms for a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA). That makes Hertz the WAC’s key decision maker and leading architect with regard to the institution’s strategic policies.

Hertz’s AJC interview is the first time he provided unfiltered public comments about the institution’s bargaining strategy and goals for new CBA terms. The interview is a must-read for anyone even remotely interested in the labor dispute as many of Hertz’s remarks are perhaps best defined as astonishing.

Although the entire interview is worth detailed analysis, here is a Top 10 overview of Hertz’s positions.

1. He believes the musicians and conductors are “a bunch of crazy people” for failing to appreciate contributors and understanding the WAC’s bargaining position.
2. He doesn’t think very many people in Atlanta care about the ASO and the orchestra’s artistic employees are not doing enough to reverse this perception.
3. The WAC is only interested in zero-sum bargaining and their financial terms are intractable.
4. The WAC would be willing to amend proposed terms that afford the employer with final say on numbers of musicians employed and how positions are potentially filled, but only if the musicians agree to their financial terms.
5. He thinks ASO music director Robert Spano and Principal Guest Conductor Donald Runnicles are a pair of populist carpetbaggers who only support the musicians because they feel guilty about getting paid while the musicians are locked out.
6. Spano and Runnicles are hyperbolic when speaking about degrading artistic accomplishment. Instead, Hertz believes they should not be talking about artist matters at all but they should be proposing solutions for “developing a more sustainable model.”
7. The ASO should operate via a commercial model and never run a deficit.
8. The ASO is a financial anchor that drags down the entire WAC.
9. He holds culture bloggers in low regard.
10. He doesn’t believe the deluge of social media vitriol against the WAC indicates the public sides with the musicians; instead, he feels that the general public, corporate community, and large donors support the WAC’s strategy.

A Lawyer’s Worst Nightmare

It isn’t surprising that Hertz has stayed out of the public limelight. His comments project an image of profound ignorance on core issues related to successful nonprofit performing arts governance alongside a simmering contempt for artistic employees (conductors and instrumentalists alike).

At the same time, it isn’t surprising to learn that a board chair maintains these positions, having said that, it is highly unusual for one to offer them up as rationale for strategic decision making.

A similar situation transpired in the Metropolitan Opera labor dispute where the institution’s General Manager, Peter Gelb, issued a string of quotes to the press that depicted a hardline approach toward employer-employee relations. Gelb’s defining moment that contributed to the Met emerging from its zero-sum bargaining strategy occurred when he told the Associated Press that “we need to impose a lockout because otherwise we have no ability to make [the artist unions] take [negotiations] seriously.”

Comments such as this make it extraordinarily difficult for an attorney representing either side in a labor dispute to implement a successful strategy, which includes carefully crafted sound bites and talking points. There’s a saying in that field, “don’t let them see how you make the sausage” and a key element in that approach is to stay on script.

In Hertz’s case, his unfiltered remarks were akin to wearing a bloody apron to the interview. It was the sort of thing that makes labor lawyers develop substance abuse problems and in the words of labor lawyer Michael G. Dzialo of Pitta & Giblin LLP, “If he were my client, I’d take him backstage and slap him around a bit, because he’s gone off-script. You do not say that.”

The Musicians Respond

Shortly after Hertz’s interview was published, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Players’ Association (ASOPA) issued a press statement accusing the WAC Governing Board leadership of financial mismanagement related to expansion of the WAC’s other divisions; specifically, the High Museum of Art and Arts for Learning. Moreover, they called for increased scrutiny and financial oversight as means for allowing the institution to achieve its goals of sustainability.

As of now, the U.S. Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) announced they will provide mediation services to help settle the dispute and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed announced that he was going to intervene by way of bringing representatives from both sides in the dispute together because he believes “both of them are communicating with me in a more open fashion than I think they are communicating with each other.”