Service & Solidarity Spotlight: AGMA and Dallas Black Dance Theatre Announce First Collective Bargaining Agreement

Working people across the United States regularly step up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our Service & Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story.

After more than two years of organizing and negotiating, American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) members have announced the ratification of their first collective bargaining agreement with Dallas Black Dance Theatre (DBDT).

Highlights of the deal include guaranteed minimum workweeks for the dancers and a minimum number of dancer positions each season, along with a seniority-based wage scale with improved minimum weekly salaries and built-in increases over the life of the contract. AGMA members also won protections for existing health insurance and retirement contribution benefits, stronger leave policies, the creation of a joint labor-management committee and more.

“We understand the significance of this moment and the path that brought us here,” the dancers on the AGMA Negotiating Committee said in a press release. “We’re proud to have negotiated a first contract that provides meaningful protections for today’s dancers while strengthening the company for those who will come after us.”

“A great deal happened to make this moment possible,” said Griff Braun, AGMA national organizing director. “We have never forgotten the former DBDT dancers who organized their workplace and stood together during an extraordinarily difficult chapter in the company’s history. Their efforts helped make this agreement possible. I have been equally inspired by the commitment, professionalism, and solidarity of the current DBDT dancers, who carried that work forward at the bargaining table. This first contract makes DBDT a safer, more supportive, and more sustainable workplace for artists today and for generations to come.”