Abu Bratsche

Hold the lay-offs; pass the pay cuts

This is pretty remarkable:

Chicago Symphony Orchestra musicians have agreed to a 2.5 percent salary reduction and will donate additional services as part of institution-wide budget cuts designed to save the orchestra an estimated $4 million through the 2010-11 season. The salary cuts are part of a general cost-cutting plan designed to ensure financial stability amid the nation's economic meltdown.

Orchestra players have accepted a pay cut for roughly two years, beginning July 1 and extending to the expiration of their present contract in September 2011. The 2.5 percent reduction will also apply to ancillary pay and overscale. The annual base salary for a CSO musician will be adjusted to $132,580 in the final seven months of the agreement.

Most vacancies on the CSO roster will not be filled before September 2011, and the hiring of temporary musicians also will be reduced. Orchestra members have agreed to donate two extra services (a rehearsal and a performance) in the coming two seasons.

I’ve been in this business for 35 years. I think this is the first time a Big Five orchestra has negotiated a cut in base compensation. It’s possible that some of the contracts negotiated during the inflationary era of the late 70s amounted to a cut in real income, but a negotiated reduction in nominal dollars paid as base pay – never.

John von Rhein, the local critic, rather misses the point in an accompanying article:

It's everybody's job in these recession-rocked times to get by with less, so we are constantly told. For U.S. symphony orchestras, that should mean a good deal more than making a few nips and tucks, which generally has been their response to the economic crisis thus far.

It will require a very different, much smarter business plan, beginning with a re-examination of the single largest line item in any orchestra's budget: the expense side. That means looking hard at what everybody is paid, from top to bottom of the organization.

My brother-in-bratsche-blogging Sam Bergman demolishes the notion of a “new business plan” very effectively. I would only add that concessionary bargaining has always been part of the current business model, and seems to work pretty well in keeping orchestras going in hard times. Given that orchestras can’t really downsize, reducing compensation is our equivalent to massive layoffs of the unionized workforce in industries in the for-profit sector.

Negotiations in the time of cholera

My orchestra just completed one of the more important rituals in the life of an orchestral institution; the negotiation of a new collective bargaining agreement. It didn’t go quite the way we had all anticipated last fall.

The collective anticipation of my colleagues, when it was announced that Edo de Waart was to become our next music director, was that this negotiation would produce some sizable economic gains for the orchestra. Edo is a big name, after all, and the board was both proud of having landed him and thinking rather ambitiously about the future. And Edo himself had spoken with surprising directness about the orchestra not being paid enough.

To add to the twinkle in our collective eye, our high-profile music director-designate’s first year would also be the first year of a new contract – the equivalent, for the experienced orchestra negotiator, of a full eclipse of the sun occurring on the summer solstice for a Druid high priest in trouble with his constituents. After many years in the economic wilderness, our ship was about to sail in.

Unfortunately, while our ship was sailing in, the tide went rushing out. Between the announcement of Edo’s appointment and the start of negotiations – well, no need to recap the business pages for the past year.

Given all of that, negotiations commenced in February with an exchange of proposals. Suffice to say that the parties were far enough apart to be barely within hailing distance. So, after some back-and-forth, both sides agreed to ask Peter Pastreich to come in as mediator.

It’s the Board, stupid

In the summer of 2002 I had the great good fortune to participate in the second (and last) of five seminars under the general title of “Alberto Vilar Project on Critical Issues for the Classical Performing Arts” (those who read the New York Times will remember why there was no third, fourth, or fifth seminar). It was a remarkable experience in every way, and one of more memorable weeks of my life, and included a chance to sit in the front row, within rosin dust distance of the first violins of the Vienna Philharmonic, of a performance of Don Giovanni.

One of my assignments was to serve on a cross-national panel discussion on orchestral governance. My US co-panelist was Brent Assink, who was a baby manager in St. Paul when I was a baby activist there, and who has since risen to the very top of his profession. The question we were all posed was simple: who runs the orchestra? Brent’s answer was equally simple: it’s the board.

Musicians don’t always get this. Even when they do, it’s not something that’s very helpful to them in trying to make their organization a better employer. But I found an article on Slate.com this morning that provides some hints. It’s aimed at non-profits smaller than most orchestras, but the principles are the same.

It’s worth a read.

End of G.P.

It's been pointed out to me that I haven’t written anything for this blog in almost a month. It’s true – but it’s been a busy month. My orchestra had negotiations for a new CBA that concluded successfully with a ratification vote on April 28 (I sat in as Local 8 presiden)t. It’s not what anyone would consider a great contract, but it was a reasonable solution to the problems at hand. I’ll write about it at length, but our local dead-trees publication wrote about it here.