Opera Pacific Wage Talks Reach an Impasse : Labor: Chorus singers make $5 an hour and want a substantial increase. The company says it cannot afford to pay them much more.

Less then three weeks before Opera Pacific’s fourth season is scheduled to open at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, wage negotiations between the company and the union representing chorus singers have reached an impasse, union spokesman Burman Timberlake said Thursday. The union has called for outside arbitration of the matter.

Because there is a no-strike clause in the company’s contract, which is still binding, the dispute will not imperil the run of Verdi’s “La Traviata,” even if the dispute is not resolved before the opera opens next month. “La Traviata” is scheduled to run Jan. 13 through 21 at the Center in Costa Mesa.

The American Guild of Musical Artists represents singers in the chorus, which can range from 24 to 60 per production. The guild is pressing the company to pay its singers substantially more than the $5 an hour they now receive, and it charged that the opera company has withheld crucial financial information. Ticket prices for “La Traviata” range from $20 to $55.

David DiChiera, general director of Opera Pacific, said Thursday that the company has made a fair offer but that he would consent to having an arbitrator decide whether the matter should proceed to being decided by a formal wage arbitration. DiChiera denied union allegations that Opera Pacific officials have withheld pertinent financial information from the negotiations.

By contrast, members of the Opera Pacific Orchestra, who are represented by the American Federation of Musicians, are paid about $23 an hour for rehearsals and performances, according to a federation spokesman. Dressers reportedly receive more than $12 an hour to assist performers with their costumes, said Timberlake, who is chairman of the guild executive committee.

Union officials argue that the singers’ comparatively low pay was agreed upon as a concession in 1986 to help the then-fledgling company get off the ground. That concession, the union officials say, was granted with the understanding that a more generous wage would be negotiated in the future. Opera Pacific presented its first production in 1987.

DiChiera said the pay rate “was appropriate at that time in terms of what the company’s resources were.”

Opera Pacific’s contract with the chorus is for five years, and it contains a provision to renegotiate pay rates after three years, according to Timberlake. Negotiations were reopened in November.

Initially, according to Timberlake, Opera Pacific management said that it would agree to arbitration over the wage issue but that more recently officials have pulled back from that position, now agreeing only to allow an arbitrator to decide whether the wage issue should be arbitrated.

Under the contract, chorus members were to be paid $4 per hour for rehearsals and $37 for each performance during the company’s first season in 1987. In the second season, the rates rose to $4.50 and $40; in the third, to $5 and $45. The federal minimum hourly wage is $3.35, but California labor requires a minimum of $4.25 an hour.

With the production of Rossini’s “Il Barbiere di Siviglia” in 1989, a two-tier wage system was introduced. Singers who had been in four previous Opera Pacific productions became “A” choristers and were paid $7 an hour and $60 a performance. Three singers qualified for the higher rate.

The company notified the union in a letter dated Dec. 11 that its final offer for the 1990 season would be $8.50 per hour and $70 per performance for “A” choristers; and $6.50 and $55 for “B” choristers.

Timberlake said Thursday: “We don’t have to reach what we consider to be a fair wage immediately, but we do have to make strong progress to it.” An hourly increase of $1.50 “is not significant progress,” he said.

“It’s important to recognize that no one else gives a start-up company like Opera Pacific a concessionary wage to reduce their costs,” he said. “The gas company, the electric company, the musicians, the Center, the set makers, the wardrobe people, the makeup people--none of these people take less than a competitive wage. The orchestra has an extremely favorable contract, and beginning next Monday will receive a 10% wage increase on top of their already competitive contract.” A musicians’ union official confirmed that the musicians will receive a pay increase.

Timberlake says that Opera Pacific has maintained that it must stick to a lower rate because of the need to keep itself in the black. Its 1989-90 budget is projected at $4.8 million.

“We have stretched ourselves as far as we can,” DiChiera said. “This is a young company. If you look at our percentage increase, what we’re offering over what we’ve paid in the past--overall over two years--is a 40% increase. That is a very major commitment on our part.”

Timberlake said that chorus members became incensed when they discovered that dressers for the 1989 production of Bellini’s “Norma” were making $12 an hour.

“I don’t think that it is appropriate for me to comment on what the rates are for any other union or any other segment that is involved,” DiChiera said. “We don’t negotiate the stagehand contract or the dressers. Those contracts are negotiated with the Performing Arts Center. I think those comparisons are totally inappropriate.”

Timberlake said that the union’s letter to the company in response its final offer includes a demand “for financial information, pointing out that withholding it is an unfair labor practice and that we would be forced to consider legal action if they refuse to give it.”

“They haven’t given us the financial information for 1988-89, which is the last complete season,” Timberlake said. “If they’re pleading poverty, we want to see what their situation is.”

DiChiera denied that any information has been held back.

Although still unhappy with the latest Opera Pacific wage offer, Timberlake conceded that it does represent an improvement over the company’s opening position.

“Their initial offer was a 6% raise, which was 30 cents. So the new rate would be $5.30. We said, ‘Let’s really be serious.’ They said, ‘6% is generally considered a reasonable wage increase.’ We said, ‘Yes--when the initial wage is competitive.’ ”

However, the union signed away its most effective bargaining chip when it agreed to a no-strike clause in the original contract. Opera Pacific has threatened by letter to invoke that clause.

“Unfortunately, under these circumstances, the contract was only reopened for negotiation for chorus and dance wages. (There are no dancers.) The other provisions of the contract continue,” Timberlake said, and they include “a non-strike clause.”

“In retrospect,” he said, “I think many of us would feel that it was unwise to have done it in this way.”