Things Get Crazy In Atlanta | October 6, 2014 | Adaptistration by Drew McManus
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.”
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.”
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