Erin Archerd tipped me off that the New York Metropolitan Opera and the unions with which it is negotiating collective bargaining agreements, are trying to call in a federal mediator at the last minute to salvage their negotiations. The article is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/31/arts/music/met-opera-proposes-federal-mediator-for-union-negotiations.html?_r=0. In an interesting note, the article described some special sort of negotiations that the unions suggested they might engage in:
“The management proposed federal mediation after the American Guild of Musical Artists, or A.G.M.A., the union for the chorus, stage directors, soloists and others, made a proposal on Wednesday to switch to a nontraditional, less adversarial form of bargaining. The Met, which said there was not enough time left for such an approach, countered with the idea of mediators.” It seems unlikely that the negotiations will be salvaged at this late hour (the contracts expire today), but stay tuned.