Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, musicians end strike
Pittsburgh Business Times: The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra announced Wednesday afternoon that it had reached a five-year deal with its musicians represented by the American Federation of Musicians Local 60-471 to end a strike that began Sept. 30. The PSO Board of Trustees approved the deal this past weekend, and a vote of the musicians Wednesday ratified the agreement.
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After following this story through several articles on this blog, its nice to hear that the musicians finally came to an agreement with the Pittsburgh symphony Orchestra. I think that the agreement that they came to is great for the musicians. It's good to hear that none of them will be loosing their job and that even though they might get a slight pay reduction, they are getting a better pension plan. The thing that most surprised me when I first started following this story was the fact that despite their contracts, musicians would be let go for no greater reason than that the Orchestra was running out of funds. Frankly, the lack of funds was the fault of the Orchestra itself for poor management and recovery of finances and should have in no way been put on the shoulders of the musicians. I am glad that they came to a fair agreement however. I'm sure it's not fun for either party of the strike. I am also glad however that the American Federation of Musicians was able to help these musicians get justice.
I'm glad to see that an agreement has been reached and the strike had finally ended. While the musicians are taking a pay cut, the amount isn't as bad as the originally-proposed 15% cut. I still believe that there are some very serious managerial issues within the PSO, and hopefully those will be resolved as soon as possible. It's great that the very talented musicians will return to Heinz Hall to play. I hope that the management is actually able to restore these musicians' salaries over the next five years. If not, then I will be very worried for the future of the PSO. I also hope that those three openings which won't be filled for the next few years don't screw up the symphony too much. It's really too bad that they're not even able to hire the full amount of musicians to fill out the orchestra. If anything, this experience reinforces the importance of labor unions in situations such as these.
A lot of people unfamiliar to the details in this situation but that are still supportive of the arts and of the symphony as a whole have been pretty happy to hear this. And in general, it is a thing that can be thought about in a positive manner. However, there are a lot of things that are negative about this deal that the musicians are going to have to deal with in the future. The musicians are taking pay cuts followed by wage freezes. I understand the frustrations that both sides are going through, however the artists deserve to play and to be paid. This was an interesting negotiation to hear about through the news, because it was often big enough to be covered by main local newspapers, however sometimes it was reported on by small independent websites. I look forward to seeing how the future relationship between management and the players pans out.
This situation has really just been a mess. I believe that the management and performers came to the best agreement possible - but I don't think either party is happy with the results. The performers will be receiving a wage cut, despite being amazing artists deserving of fair compensation. The managers will be forced to look elsewhere to lower their budget - costing the jobs of employees in a different section of the symphony. However, I believe that this strike drew attention to the much larger issue of low musician compensation nationwide. Pittsburgh symphony, before its wage cuts, was the tenth highest paying orchestra in the country with a $100,110 annual salary. But compensation falls off fast, with the twentieth on the list - San Diego - paying half of that. It continues to drop - with some major cities paying musicians as little as $30,000 annually. Across the country, wages very from $17.50 to $71.88 an hour. Pittsburgh has it pretty nice right now, even with the cuts, but the strike here opens the discussion of increasing the wages of talented musicians elsewhere in the county.
I'm glad, after following this, it has come to some sort of resolve. Even if they are getting a pay cut, I'm glad the Pittsburgh musicians will still have jobs, and a similar pay to what they had before. It was tough for both parties and I understood both sides coming in. Gaining money for a symphony is hard. People are less liable to go to a symphony despite Pittsburgh Symphony's tries with all their popculture concerts. And yet, the musicians still need to be paid what they deserve as talented performers. (However I'm still surprised that they make 6 figures, which may sound bad.) So this deal is as good as any to keep it all going. I just wonder... who is the anonymous extremely wealthy donor who aided in solving this? And how can we thank them? Because that's a great deal of money to be giving, to increase the performer's salary each by 3 percent.
I guess the best thing I can do from here on out is to simply go see the Pittburgh Symphony Orchestra, since they need support and they need ticket sales now more than ever.
I've been following this story on the blog for quite awhile now. Maybe it's because I don't know a lot about how an orchestra is run, but this doesn't seem like that great of a resolution to me. The article says that their salaries would initially go down, but then would ultimately be restored in five years. With the company in need of money this doesn't seem like a very good way to economically recover. However, there is something to be said about the fact that the musicians are what draw in paying customers so they should invest in them. I wonder how months of cancelled performances will affect the company's programming for next year, as I'm sure they have a lot of ground to make up in lost tickets sales. Even though the strike is over I don't think that this situation is completely resolved, and I'm curious to see where it will go from here.
As much as I am not crazy about how this was handled, I am very glad it is coming to a close. Though there is still a hefty pay cut and clearly a very damaged relationship between the musicians and upper management, at least they all will be keeping their jobs. It is legal for them to be replaced on a financial-based strike, so the fact that everyone is coming back says something to me about the level of talent in the group (as well as perhaps the expected salary). I think five years is a reasonable amount of time to bring the pay back up. It really isn't ideal, I think two years would be more what the company needed, but if five years is what it takes to keep the company on track and everyone paid a decent amount, then that's that. I'm excited that they will be back to playing, as I think we all could use a little music, but I will be interested to hear more about where this goes in the future.
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