Still at the precipice?

Over the past year San Francisco Opera's General Director David Gockley has made some alarming statements about the fiscal health of the company, going so far as to say it was on the "precipice." Reading between the lines, I took his statements to be thinly veiled attempts to set the table upon which he could wrangle concessions from the unions, who would soon be negotiating new contracts with SFO. At the beginning of this month the company and the union representing the orchestra agreed to a three year contract where it seems everyone got something in the bargain while still saving the company more than a million dollars a year. That's some pretty smooth negotiating on both sides- nice job everyone! Perhaps you could show Congress how it's done.

There's still another contract waiting to be  ratified for the choristers, dancers, directors and stage crews. I haven't seen any news on that one, though the contract expired last month. If Gockley can achieve a similar success with this contract, will this quiet the calls of the sky falling or is there more bad news to come from other quarters? We'll have to wait and see.