Pittsburgh Symphony musicians go on strike, concerts canceled
Management of the venerable orchestra predicts that the combined deficit of the organization will reach $20 million (it currently sits at $11 million). The tried and true solution? Balance the books on the backs of the people making the music (aren't they the people that audiences come to hear?), to the tune (pun intended) of a 15% salary decrease. The ham-handed proposal also includes a "hard freeze" of the pension plan (replaced by a 401k for those with less than 30 years of service) and a reduction in the size of the ensemble. This sounds all too familiar.
Negotiations began in February and got nowhere, ending in the work stoppage. Ten days of effort by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (which succeeded in the Metropolitan Opera near-fiasco a year ago) failed to produce an agreement between the parties.
A story reported by Mark Kanny of Tri Total Media stated, “When new management stepped in at the Pittsburgh Symphony, we undertook a diagnostic situation assessment that caused us to realize that we are facing an imminent financial crisis. That assessment showed that, due to a combination of forces, we would run out of cash and have to close the doors in May/June 2017,” said board chairman Devin McGranahan in a prepared statement. McGranahan and president Melia Tourangeau took office in 2015.
What combination of forces?
Despite a history dating back to 1898 (except for a 16-year lapse) and world-class conductors such as Fritz Reiner, William Steinberg, Lorin Maazel, and Mariss Jansons, the management is just now figuring out that there may be a financial problem?
Interestingly enough, in one of her first interviews after arriving in Pittsburgh, Tourangeau said, “the priority is to get to a balanced budget. I feel there has been a tremendous amount of cost-cutting that has taken place. In my opinion, we have a revenue problem, not an expense problem.”
Norman Lebrecht, with whom I sometimes agree, offers this assessment, Management’s refusal to compromise clearly is ideological. New PSI Management has decided, against all evidence, that Pittsburgh somehow cannot support a world-class orchestra, and that a “new business model” is needed. This makes no sense. In 2016, the PSO’s Annual Fund hit a record; ticket sales are up; the Pittsburgh economy is dynamic; the Cultural District is thriving. This is no time for the PSI to abandon the idea that Pittsburgh deserves a world-class orchestra.
What combination of forces?
Despite a history dating back to 1898 (except for a 16-year lapse) and world-class conductors such as Fritz Reiner, William Steinberg, Lorin Maazel, and Mariss Jansons, the management is just now figuring out that there may be a financial problem?
Interestingly enough, in one of her first interviews after arriving in Pittsburgh, Tourangeau said, “the priority is to get to a balanced budget. I feel there has been a tremendous amount of cost-cutting that has taken place. In my opinion, we have a revenue problem, not an expense problem.”
Norman Lebrecht, with whom I sometimes agree, offers this assessment, Management’s refusal to compromise clearly is ideological. New PSI Management has decided, against all evidence, that Pittsburgh somehow cannot support a world-class orchestra, and that a “new business model” is needed. This makes no sense. In 2016, the PSO’s Annual Fund hit a record; ticket sales are up; the Pittsburgh economy is dynamic; the Cultural District is thriving. This is no time for the PSI to abandon the idea that Pittsburgh deserves a world-class orchestra.
If ticket revenue is up and the Annual Fund is at record levels, show me the money.
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No one is budging in Fort Worth, where the orchestra has been on strike through most of September. The Star-Telegram published an incendiary editorial on September 12 and there has been no reporting of the rebuttal by the musicians (summarized here):
We (the FWSO musicians) just ask you to consider the following as you decide for yourself about fiscal responsibility. Is the FWSO Management being fiscally responsible when they:
We (the FWSO musicians) just ask you to consider the following as you decide for yourself about fiscal responsibility. Is the FWSO Management being fiscally responsible when they:
- Fall short on raising enough money to pay the musicians?
- Use a contingency fund every year to cover operating costs?
- Ignore professional advice to expand the fundraising department?
- Have a new Vice-President of Development every year?
- Don’t have a Strategic Plan past the year 2017?
It is obvious that CEO Amy Adkins is out of her element. Development is the most important issue facing the orchestra. The fact that Development V-Ps last an average of one year says something about management at the top.
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| Her Fort Worth home (She also has residences in Colorado and New York City)
She could solve the orchestra's finances with a check out of her pin money account, without cutting into more high-profile gifts to a Lincoln Center opera company.
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COULD PHILLY FALL (Again?)
Calling management's latest offer "regressive", musicians of the Philadelphia Orchestra are none too happy either. Once part of the venerable "Big Five" of American ensembles (according to budget size), Philly now sits at number 8, and musician salaries continue to fall further behind their colleagues in cities like Boston.
The contract has already expired and something (or someone) has to move. CEO Allison Vulgamore's track record is not strong (note her previous "service" in Atlanta). The 2011 bankruptcy still looms large, especially for an organization that maintained a $140 million endowment, owned (and still owns) the Academy of Music, and had no debts! Huh?
The musicians note in their September newsletter:
Although the filing in April 2011 was opposed by the musicians, the public was told that it was a necessary step and that when the Orchestra emerged from bankruptcy, things would be much better.
When the court approved the bankruptcy, the Association made wholesale changes to our pension plan. The Plan was frozen and its administration was transferred to the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, a U. S. government entity. Some musicians may receive lower pensions than they would have earned under the frozen Plan. The retirement benefits which were substituted for the Plan do not guarantee the benefit level specified in the Plan. In addition, the orchestra musicians, who had voluntarily taken a wage freeze the year before, and who had donated a significant amount of money to the Association, saw their salaries reduced by more than 14 percent. The size of the orchestra was also reduced, from 106 full-time positions to 95.
The Association, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer's Peter Dobrin, spent “almost $10 million in professional fees and expenses” on the bankruptcy, and paid settlements of $1.75 million to the American Federation of Musicians Pension Plan, and $1.25 million to the Philly Pops in the process.
More than five years later, Musicians hoped that the Association would view the bankruptcy as a temporary means to regroup and ultimately restore the kind of budget that is necessary to fund a major symphony orchestra, rather than as a way to downgrade the musicians' contract permanently. More than five years later, we are still waiting.
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Contract talks at the Pacific Symphony (budget $20 million) have halted. Musicians’ Bargaining Committee Chairperson Adam Neeley states, “The Pacific Symphony is the only professional orchestra in the United States with any significant annual budget that does not provide a weekly wage or annual guarantee of wages to its musicians.” Neeley states further, “Musicians have no predictability of their income from week to week, month to month or year to year.”
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Who is next? |
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