It looks like the CSO strike is over. While it was happening, I noticed a few arguments surfacing again and again. I’d like to take a minute to debunk those arguments. Later, maybe we can have a discussion about whether orchestras are money-destroying, old-fashioned dinosaurs. Sometimes I think they are. But for me, it’s been troubling to observe the anti-musician bias among … wait for it … musicians. Here are the top three arguments I’ve noticed, featuring awesome screenshots of people moaning and groaning on the internet:
1. CSO musicians make a ton of money, and times are difficult in the arts. They should stop complaining.
I’m going to go ahead and say that as long as the CSO remains solvent — which it has — the musicians absolutely deserve the high salaries they are earning. (This is coming from a violinist who earns about one-seventh what they do.) I think the musicians, and Andrew Patner, are right to compare winning a job in the Chicago Symphony with getting drafted by the New York Yankees. After all, the CSO slogan is World’s Best, Chicago’s Own — and they use that slogan to raise serious money. If the musicians are the world’s best, it absolutely follows that they should be collecting the highest salary among the world’s orchestras.
If we accept that point — which I think is pretty clear, unless you want to get into whether orchestras should even exist in their current state — then why do people keep bringing up their salaries? Because it’s a cheap way to get the public turned against the musicians. It’s just good, old-fashioned divide-and-conquer. (“Those bastards make how much more than me?! $*&@#$!”) Maybe instead of thinking of the arts economy as zero-sum (“Every dollar those musicians make is a dollar they’re taking away from me!”) we should think of it as a tide that lifts — or sinks — all of our boats. If CSO musicians are valued highly, that has an elevating effect on the wages of every Chicago musician. This dude Michael, above, probably isn’t the only one who thinks playing in an orchestra isn’t “real work” that deserves pay — and that’s an attitude that plagues every single musician.
2. CSO musicians are not workers, and orchestral playing is not labor.
In this argument, I think there’s a basic misunderstanding of what defines the employer-employee dynamic. Salary does not define the dynamic; power does. Why does it matter how highly paid the CSO musicians are if they have no control over the institution for which they work? A few basic questions demonstrate the amount of power the musicians have. First, do the musicians have any say in major financial decisions made by the organization? No. Second, do they have control over the orchestra’s means of production (the Symphony Center space, the equipment, the public relations department, the donor base)? No — because they’re just employees.
Also — hold up. You’re telling me that a group of people doing intense physical work, under the sole directorship of one man, playing exactly when he tells them to, aren’t performing labor? The unionization of orchestral players has allowed musicians to control length of rehearsal time, temperature, breaks, and other essential working conditions. But anyone who’s ever felt like an overworked mule — sore muscles and all — at the end of an orchestra rehearsal knows that orchestral playing is labor.
3. It’s wrong for the CSO to withhold their services. They’re inconveniencing patrons and hurting the orchestra’s image.
I am sure that the orchestra did not want to go on strike, and hates the idea of turning people away from a concert. A strike is always a last resort. But inconveniencing patrons — inconveniencing everyone in the organization, in fact — is the point of a strike. And labor law in the United States — as skewed as it is towards the employer — gives the musicians a fundamental right to withdraw their labor. It is one of the only leverage tactics that employees have in order to get what they’re asking for. The management holds a lot of cards; the musicians basically only hold this one.
4. BONUS: Uh, do any of these arguments sound familiar?
Yes — because they’re the same arguments people used against the Chicago Teachers Union two weeks ago. People claimed that teachers earned too much (less than half what the CSO musicians make) and that they were “hurting the children” by striking. As it turns out, what the teachers were striking for included smaller classes sizes, more social services, more art and music teachers, and more money for classroom supplies.
These are stock arguments against any workers who dare to say no to their management. The next time a group of people goes on strike, be on the lookout for them.
P.S. — Hello there! Is this your first time visiting my blog? I write about lots of things besides the CSO strike. Check out these posts on why people quit music, how motherhood will destroy your music career, five things I wish I knew when I was in music school, musicians’ student loan debt, and why orchestral auditions are insane.
Outstanding article fellow musician. I totally agree with what you said. I am glad our fellow musicians are back to performing.
Ellen:
Your remarks are TOTALLY valid and appreciated and actually AGREED with. But there is an important one you left out.
I’m not sure (as I don’t know you presonally) if you have been or are a member of a full-time member of an orchestra in the US. I am sure, however, that you are aware of the economic constraints placed on nearly every single orchestra in the country. These constraints have overwhelemd the symphonic field, even in communities where finances are not so bad. Managements across the US have taken notice and have demanded cuts to all contracts.
In my orchestra, the Richmond Symphony, drastic cuts have been mandated and the orchestra is not in agreement, has not signed a new deal, and is currently performing without said new deal…because the BIGGEST way to get public disapproval is to strike. Have the management lock you out. It shows that the management is not in support of their employees and is basically putting them out of work in a situation where it becomes impossible to live.
IMPOSSIBLE TO LIVE. That is the key. Of course I believe the top orchestras in the country should make a premium salary. They are our benchmark in excellence.
But when THOUSANDS of other musicians who have (frankly) extreme talent are suffering because of a FEW thousand dollar paycut, a strike is the WORST possible option. Having an orchestra strike in a major metro region like Chicago, makes national news and trikles to all parts of the country. It exhagerates and reenforces the public opinion that symphony musicians are living off tax dollars and are greedy. When a mostly ‘uneducated public’ (with the utmost respect – meaning those who have no concept of what the other ‘%99′ of professional musicians make) community members see that those making well over $100,000 are demanding more, and it hurts all of our causes. The next time you play a wedding, consider taking a 30% + pay cut.
The CSO strike did more damage to the reputation of countless other orchestras in contract negotations, individual musicians, and public image than you take into account…especially when you take into consideration of those fighting for a few thousand dollars to EAT rather than those fighting for many more thousands of dollars to pay for lifestyle choices.
I could go on, and will if you wish to have a discourse, but hope this also raises an eyebrow.
Best (from a VERY good friend of your Q cellist),
Ross
Hi, Ross! So nice to hear from you on here, I know Sara adores you so you must be pretty cool. =) I completely hear what you are saying here. You are right, orchestra players all over the country are under immense pressure to accept concessions. I can imagine that the situation in Richmond is extraordinarily stressful, and that the musicians want to tread carefully in terms of how they are viewed by the public. (Side note: is VA a right-to-work state?)
I guess what I would say to this is that the way you, and the CSO musicians, get treated in the media (thus turning a lot of the public against “greedy, spoiled” musicians), is not because of a strike. It is a deeply pervasive, wrongheaded attitude in our society which, as I mentioned regarding the Chicago Teachers strike, is leveled against basically ALL unionized workers, from symphony players to teachers to Verizon workers. Union membership has plummeted in the past fifty years, and with that has come the demonization of unions by the media. While this attitude does make our lives more difficult, I don’t believe this is a good reason to simply sit down and take whatever management is handing out. I believe we should continue to exercise our right to collective bargaining, in spite of the cost to our public image. I believe that standing in solidarity together and not engaging in union-bashing or musician-basing — which, as I sadly observed, is practiced by MUSICIANS — is the best way forward. I also believe that the more often workers strike (which has been a rare occurrence in the last few decades), the more our society will come to understand the importance and value of strikes.
Your comment takes the “divide-and-conquer” attitude as a given. But I believe, if musicians learn to stand together and make good arguments for our value (and build careers which are inherently valuable to the community), “divide-and-conquer” will no longer work.
There are many aspects of this highly complex situation which aren’t addressed in my post. For me, chief among these is how the orchestra can communicate its value — and indeed, BE valuable — to average community members, so that the community will stand by their side as patrons, concertgoers, and hopefully labor supporters too.
Hope to meet you sometime! And I hope things get resolved fairly in Richmond.
So when is it ok to ask musicians to give back? Is there ever a good time? Because they are “the best” orchestra it is never ok to ask them to contribute a little something to help mitigate the cost of running themselves in a non-profit world? Are they the special people that should never have to give anything back and always entitled to what they feel they deserve no matter what the cost? Look at Indianapolis for example, everyone is pointing their fingers at management and saying “wait you can’t come in all of a sudden and slash someone’s salary by 40% – why weren’t you solving this financial problem as it went along?”
So here is a perfect example. Health costs are rising, the CSO managment is trying to find a small way to mitigate the expense and asks the musicians to contribute a little more to the cost. Whatever they get or don’t get, they are stuck with for the duration of a three year agreement. Meanwhile, health plan premiums cost $500 (single) to $1500 (family) a month where I work. Renewals can fluctuate wildly depending on the client’s experience ratio (I have seen renewals come in at 20% and higher some years) and their is absolutely no way for management to control that increase other than hope they might be able find another plan. They were asked to pay $1200 more a year, I believe bringing their total contribution up to a little over $2000/yr. That is not a dramatic request, particularly since they were also given three years of raises.
So when managment tried to be responsible and manage their expenses, the musicians put up their hands and said, nope go find it somewhere else. And when they can’t find it somewhere else, it will get tacked onto their mounting deficits, which even Chicago has quite a bit of at this point. Sure they are “solvent” right now as you say, but is that really the definition of a financially healthy orchestra? And then when the draw on the endowment finally maxes out, when the they have squeezed all they can out of their donors, when they can’t cut any more expenses without creating serious problems with production – they will be just as desperate to find money as many other orchestras are at this point. They just have a larger pool to play in right now. And then they will have their backs up against a wall and go to the musicians asking for money. And the musicians will come back and say – “I don’t understand. Why weren’t you fixing this problem as we went along? I didn’t create this problem, you were the one who was supposed to manage things responsibly. Now you want me to fix it?”
Entitlement at its finest. Perhaps if everyone treated their orchestra as a unit (comprised of musicians, management, donors, volunteer, board members etc.) and focused on making that unit stronger, rather than perpetuating musicians against managment all the time, people would work together to solve these difficult problems. Perhaps, if people worked together to make their orchestras community focused entities, instead of wasting time and energy stewing about what they do or don’t have compared to their musician friend across the country, we could solve alot of the issues we are having in this business right now. Just a thought. But that kind of solution would require a whole lot less self-centered entitlement and whole lot more focus on what we all should be in this business for – bringing an amazing artform to the communities in which we live.
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While I agree that the perceived value of CSO musicians and local freelancers has the potential to rise and fall together, I am concerned by the argument that how much money the CSO makes is related to how much they are valued. If we grant that the worth of a person and the respect they hold in society is equivalent how much money they make, we’ve already lost the most precious ground we have.
I think this is where the fight has to happen. There ARE enemies in this debate, but they are scattered amongst musicians and management who dogmatically stick to their sides no matter what out of a ferocious need to feel respected, at the expense of the actual substance of the discussion.
These points were not mentioned in this article: Most symphony orchestra audiences are shrinking, ticket sales are down, maybe it could be due to higher prices, maybe lack of good PR, it’s unpopularity. In recent years, corporate support from the community is cut back due the sluggish US economy. The Federal Government and many local governments are bankrupt as well. If the orchestra is not bringing in enough money, then the orchestra’s CEO must work with that to make it survive. Example: The ceo might have to cut the season back, cut the orchestra size at times, find affordable venues to rehearse and perform, cut salaries, etc, at the same time trying to raise support. Orchestras are managed like a business entity, ceo’s must deal with the ups and downs of the economy, and the supply and demand.
My husband and I are business owners, so we deal with this all the time.