By Sarah Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 7, 2006; C01
With the help of two federal mediators who presided over five days of marathon negotiating sessions, the Washington Ballet reached a tentative agreement with its dancers on a first-ever union contract, both the ballet and the dancers' union announced yesterday. If the deal holds, it will put the company back in business for the first time since the Christmas season and end an often bitter negotiating process that stretched over four months.
Not all of the company's 20 dancers have read the contract, according to the American Guild of Musical Artists, the union that has represented the Washington Ballet dancers since last year. And neither side would discuss details of the pact, since it has not yet been ratified by AGMA's board of governors or by the ballet's board.
But in interviews at the ballet's headquarters yesterday, management and union representatives seemed eager to put the acrimony behind and trumpet a success.
"We have agreed on a contract we think is a win-win for everyone," said Washington Ballet board President Kay Kendall. "It secures the respect for the hard work and talent of dancers and protects Septime's artistic flexibility."
The flexibility allowed to Artistic Director Septime Webre had been a key issue. Disagreements over such issues as how and when he could dismiss dancers, how he could expand his roster with the use of students from the Washington Ballet's school, and how many dancers he would be required to employ -- which the ballet viewed as stepping into areas of artistic control -- were the chief reasons the contract process took so long.
The resulting pact, ballet officials said, covers the dancers through the end of the 2007-08 season, essentially a 2 1/2 -year period. A 4 percent salary increase will go into effect in August. However, said Webre, who had been under fire from the dancers for not adhering to standard practices regarding rehearsals, "We will implement changes in work rules and conditions immediately."
Webre said that the dancers, who have been unemployed since January, will go back to work March 27 and work through June 25. This season was to have ended May 14, but the company will reschedule some of its canceled performances.
An impasse in negotiations led to "The Nutcracker" being canceled about halfway through its run, and, blaming the resulting loss of ticket sales, the company then canceled all other productions through March.
Two of those productions will now go back on the schedule. "The Bach/Beatles Project," pairing a new ballet by Webre with a new work by Trey McIntyre, will be performed in the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater May 11-14. "7x7: Women," featuring seven works by female choreographers, will run June 8-25 in the ballet's Wisconsin Avenue NW headquarters, rather than in the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater, where it had been slated for performance last week.
Webre announced yesterday that all 20 dancers will be re-engaged for the next season. He would not comment further on the contract's provisions for re-engagement.
People involved in the negotiations, who did not want to be named because the contract is not yet ratified, said that the union conceded somewhat on the re-engagement clause. The dancers, claiming that Webre's dismissal of two company members last year made them fearful of being retaliated against for their union activities, had sought a guaranteed three years of employment, instead of the standard one-year guarantee.
One of the federal mediators, Joel Schaffer, said in an interview yesterday that the contract contained "side letters." Such documents are often used to smooth over an issue that is too contentious to resolve in a contract.
One issue covered in a side letter, according to people familiar with the provisions, concerns job guarantees. What the letter provides, in addition to job guarantees for all of the current 20 dancers for 2006-07 season, is that no less than 80 percent of those dancers will be rehired for the 2007-08 season.
By all accounts, a breakthrough was reached in the negotiations on Friday when Schaffer and Gary Eder of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service led a meeting among the artistic staff and the dancers, where no notes were taken and concerns got a thorough airing.
At this meeting, said dancer Luis Torres, "it felt like we were doing boot camp for couples counseling." During earlier negotiations, he said, speaking openly was often difficult. "We were involved in legal talk that nobody really understood. Once we got to our own lingo, we were able to understand each other."
That meeting served to "humanize" the conflict, said Schaffer. "What [the meeting] allowed was to finally remember how much both sides truly care about the company, and that what both of them were doing in their own way was protecting the future of the company."
Schaffer has mediated two separate contract agreements with the San Francisco Ballet as well as with various symphony and opera groups. Dancers and management finally reached agreement here, he said, "because both sides wanted it. They just needed a little assistance in finding out a way to get it."
A benefit concert that the dancers are organizing to raise money for themselves to defray costs of unemployment will go on as scheduled Thursday through next Sunday, with the ballet providing costumes and toe shoes for the dancers, said Webre.
It will not be easy to return to the rehearsal studio and face an artistic director with whom they have had very public disagreements, said several dancers who would not be quoted by name because they are not permitted to speak to the media.
"I don't think the work is done," noted one of them. "Until you live with [the contract] and work with it every day, you can't say one way or another whether it's the right contract or the wrong contract." However, this dancer added, "Our best way to show our respect for the contract is to get back in the studio."
