Harvey S. Mars Named to 2011 Metro-New York Super Lawyer List

Harvey S. Mars has been named to the Metro-New York State Super Lawyers list as one of the top attorneys in Metro New York for 2011.  No more than 5 percent of the lawyers in the state are selected by Super Lawyers.

  Super Lawyers, a Thomson Reuters business, is a rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement.  The annual selections are made using a rigorous multi-phased process that includes a statewide survey of lawyers, an independent research evaluation of candidates, and peer reviews by practice area.

 The Super Lawyers lists are published nationwide in Super Lawyers magazines and in leading city and regional magazines across the country.  Super Lawyers magazines also feature editorial profiles of attorneys who embody excellence in the practice of law.  For more information about Super Lawyers, go to superlawyers.com.

The first Super Lawyers list was published in 1991 and by 2009 the rating service had expanded nationwide.  In February 2010 Super Lawyers was acquired by Thomson Reuters, the world’s leading source of intelligent information for business and professionals.

AGMA Response On CIty Opera

NY City Opera: Now, AGMA Speaks

On Tuesday, George Steel gave his "season" announcement – and, while he was at it, fired shots at his critics and at the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA).

Now, it's AGMA's turn:

Subject: WORK FOR NYCO PROHIBITED
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2011 12:43:01 -0400 (EDT)

AGMA, AFL-CIO
1430 Broadway
New York City 10018
AGMANY@AOL.COM

Dear Members:

Yesterday, George Steel announced that you would be performing for NYCO in its next season, assuming that NYCO continues to exist. The AGMA Constitution, which AGMA will aggressively enforce in court, prohibits you from performing for City Opera in the event of a Guild picket line is in effect.

As you may be aware, the collective bargaining agreement between AGMA and New York City Opera expired in April. George Steel has, for all intents and purposes, proposed to eliminate all guaranteed employment for AGMA members, to cancel their health insurance, to eliminate the requirement for AGMA membership, to hire student and volunteer singers and to unilaterally extend the work day of principal artists, without any limitation. Although we are finally about to become engaged in negotiations for a successor agreement, given the proposals made by George Steel, it is unlikely in the extreme that a successor agreement will be successfully concluded quickly.

In any event, under federal labor law, the provisions of that expired contract must continue to be honored by NYCO until a successor agreement or an impasse is reached. One of the continuing provisions requires that AGMA receive a copy of, and consent to, any individual employment pursuant to a Standard Artists Agreement. We have not received a copy of any agreement purporting to cover your employment. Without regard to City Opera’s failure to tender a copy of that letter, AGMA is not prepared to approve any such contracts unless a current collective bargaining is in effect between AGMA and City Opera at the time of the performance.

If AGMA and City Opera fail to successfully conclude a collective bargaining agreement prior to the start of your contracted employment, AGMA will not sanction your performance of any services for City Opera.

Moreover, in the event that an impasse occurs in the negotiations, and an AGMA picket line exists at any venue in which City Opera is performing, the AGMA Constitution prohibits you from crossing that picket line.

While I am sure that you and your agent may find this advice distressing, I can not fail to remind you that our obligation is to preserve, to the extent possible, the protections of the collective bargaining agreement for the men and women who have given their careers to City Opera and who would, if George Steel succeeds in presenting non-union productions, be cast out on the street, unable to provide for their support and the welfare of their families.

We are certain that we can count on your support. Inasmuch as AGMA is obligated to do everything possible, in the event of a strike, to prevent George Steel from effectuating his destruction of City Opera, I also need to advise you that AGMA will impose fines on any member who crosses an AGMA picket line and will sue to collect those fines in the appropriate federal or state court.

We sincerely hope that these actions will not become necessary.

Cordially,

Alan S. Gordon

A Little Self Promotion Never Hurt Anyone

Save City Opera

Check out the inspirational U Tube Video of yesterday's Local 802 -AGMA protest to save city opera:    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qofr8Z6ZCt8&feature=email  

Save City Opera

Keep the New York City Opera at Lincoln Center!

Save Live Music On Broadway

Don’t Let Priscilla Turn Broadway Into the Queen of the Musical Desert!Posted on May 15, 2011 by The Council For Living Music

Some Broadway producers apparently don’t care about the critical interplay between musicians and musical performers that gives Broadway shows their special emotional spark. They would rather insult your taste with recorded music than give you the live show you paid for and deserve.

In 2010, producers of Leonard Bernstein’s classic West Side Story slashed five musicians after 500 performances, and replaced their extraordinary live instruments with a synthesizer, prompting violinist and Bernstein collaborator Paul Woodiel to write in an op-ed in the New York Times, “I don’t think Lenny would have approved.” Critics like the New York Post’s Barbara Hoffman agreed, stating “Something as sacred as that score, one of the most beautiful scores ever written—it’s blasphemous.”

The West Side Story incident is also a blatant example of producers’ frequent “bait and switch” tactics—opening a show with a full live orchestra and garnering positive reviews, and then cheating subsequent audiences by replacing much of the acclaimed orchestra with canned music. And when producers cheapen the quality of the show, do they ever reduce ticket prices? Of course not!—they continue to raise the cost of tickets to squeeze out even more profits.

Now, producers of the recently opened Priscilla Queen of the Desert have wildly escalated their war on live music by doing what for Broadway’s entire history was regarded as unthinkable—they have drastically cut the theatre’s live orchestra, and instead are forcing the remaining musicians to play along with a recording. Needless to say, theatre critics who reviewed the show have been appalled, calling it “synthetic to the core” (Time Out New York); “mechanical and monotonous” and “karaoke-inspired” (The New York Times); “a glossy costume party masquerading as a musical” (New York Daily News); “the songs… blend together into an undifferentiated morass” (everythingmusicals.com); and “an oversized karaoke party” (AM New York). This show deprives the audience of the robust, live musical experience they have every reason to expect.

Priscilla’s producers claim that artistic considerations are the basis for their actions, asserting that Priscilla is seeking a disco sound that can only be achieved by using a recording of live musicians and altering it with special effects. However, the result they are seeking can readily be produced (and sound better!) by using a full orchestra and adjusting the music with the show’s sound board, which can match any sound created in a recording studio. And unlike the producers of American Idiot and numerous other musicals that legitimately called for a smaller sound, the producers of Priscilla are NOT seeking a “stripped-down” sound. In fact, they are asking musicians to play along with a recording of the same parts the musicians are playing, and then adding a recorded string section on top of that—attempting to create the sound of a large orchestra. But with so much canned music, the quality of Priscilla’s sound is far inferior to a full live ensemble.

Does anyone really think that producers, always rummaging for new ways to pad their pockets, will stop with replacing just half an orchestra? If they get away with what they did in Priscilla, before you know it you might buy expensive tickets to a Broadway show only to see a lone pianist sadly playing along with a canned orchestra.

Maybe in the future they could just have the actors lip-sync to songs performed by a computer—we could call it Android Lloyd Webber! Some producers have shown that there is no limit to how much they are willing to debase the Broadway experience if it means a bigger payoff. There is nothing “special” about Priscilla that justifies slashing the orchestra, but the goal is clear: pay as little as possible for live music— degrading the quality of the time-honored Broadway musical—and pocket more profits.

Save Live Music On Broadway needs your help to stop this race to the cultural bottom. Sign our petition and help us fight back by being a part of our campaign to defend the integrity and authenticity of the musical theater—and KEEP BROADWAY LIVE!

Former Client

A Former Client

    Here's an original song by one of my former clients .  She was one of the two musicians who was arrested at the Tonic demonstration.  The song is a rather simple yet beautiful melody.

The Last Day of Tonic

National Labor Board 10(j) Injunction Sought For Terminated Pre-School Workers

Looks like someone need a time-out:

Teachers Fired by Preschool of America Should Get Jobs Back, Labor Officials Say

The National Labor Relations Board wants 14 teachers who were fired from Preschool of America reinstated.

Children raise their hands. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

By Janon Fisher

Special to DNAinfo

MANHATTAN — The National Labor Relations Board is asking a federal judge to send the city's largest private preschool provider to the corner for a time-out after the organization fired 14 teachers when they joined a union.

The NLRB wants the judge to reinstate all of the teachers canned by Preschool of America, which has 12 daycare centers in Manhattan, and to start negotiating with the union — AFSME, DC 1707 — in good faith, according to court papers.

Joanna Fan, the executive director of Preschool of America, refused to comment. But in an affidavit filed with the court, she told labor investigators that the teachers she fired from the 1501 Lexington Avenue and the 101 West End Avenue locations last August and September lacked a "good work ethic."

She also told NLRB investigators that one teacher provided her with a fake diploma, another lacked the proper state certification and others were chronically late or absent.

"If an employee does an inferior job there should be a corrective effort," said Harvey Mars, the union lawyer. "But they didn't dig into the personnel issues until after unionization."

The teacher's gripes started in 2010 when Preschool of America did away with winter and spring breaks and other benefits, according to court documents.

The teachers were so outraged that one of them suggested putting a blow-up rat in front of  the school in protest of the change, according to court papers.

Preschool of America's Lexington Avenue location certified the union on August 2, 2010 — three days later five of the teachers who had joined the union were fired.

The NLRB said that the preschool management threatened to freeze wages for those that joined and offered bonuses to teachers who voted down the union. Federal investigators also charge that Fan violated labor law by conducting surveillance on teachers who were organizing.

Fan, whose daycare company nets a $1 million a year, said that she met with teachers to talk about their complaints. She explained to them that she came to this country with $40 in her pocket and built this business herself, according to her statement.

Lawyers for Preschool of America have met with the union as late as March 8, but Mars said that there has been no good faith negotiation.

"They have offered to decrease salaries, increase hours and increase employee contribution to health care," said Mars. "It's remarkable."

The preschool lawyers did not immediately return calls seeking comment. Their response to the government's complaint is due on April 20.

Read more: http://www.dnainfo.com/20110323/upper-east-side/teachers-fired-by-preschool-of-america-should-get-jobs-back-labor-officials-say#ixzz1HWaEI8I5