And You May Ask Yourself – How Did We Get Here?

It’s D-day.  Not in Egypt, nor Bahrain, or Tunisia.  It’s D-day in Detroit, and I, for one, am not optimistic.

Several months ago I went out on a limb and said that the current mess a) was going to end up canceling this entire DSO season; and b) would probably mean the end of the DSO entirely.  I hate being right but that’s what is going to happen.  The musician’s negotiation committee of the DSO has recommended that the musicians reject the “last, best offer” from DSO management.  DSO management has vowed to cancel the rest of the season.  Irresistible force, allow me to introduce you to immovable object.

Past the obvious – hundreds of people out of work, a venerable institution in the toilet, and enough bad publicity to make Hosni Mubarak smile in relief – there will be the aftermath.  The blame for this disaster will be assigned along all too predictable lines, the righteous will fall on their swords, and then everyone will go back to what they were doing before.  Sad but true.  What’s worse is that this could have been avoided.

Cause, then effect.  My 4th grader is learning that in his science class these days.  On a political level the governments of several countries in the Mideast are learning that, to their dismay.  On a budgetary level anyone who, like me, got their undies in a bunch when they first heard the line “we can increase defense spending, cut taxes, and balance the budget” can now, after 30 years, say “Yeah?  How’s that working out for you?”  The problem is that short-term gain is rarely good for the long-term stability of any organization.  The DSO could have gotten their budget under control 5 years ago, at the very least.  No one, not the Board, the administration, nor the musicians should have even been pretending that their current business model was sustainable.  Instead of making the tough decisions then they are forced to make the impossible decisions now.

I admit it – this makes me angry.  It seems impossibly shortsighted but I guess that’s the American Way.  How many more orchestras in this country are going to go the way of the Dodo simply because we collectively refuse to do the institutional work required to sustain long-term financial health?  Instead we remain locked in a labor relationship mentality that should have gone out with the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa.  We are still too wrapped up in pointing the finger at “the enemy” – Board, Administration, Musicians Union, whomever.

Well, folks, we have met the enemy, and he is us.

6 thoughts on “And You May Ask Yourself – How Did We Get Here?”

  1. Same as it ever was.

    This biz stopped making sense a long time ago.

    What is about achieving and maintaining excellence in sharing the greatest art the species has created is so hard to sell to subscribers, donors, and yes, governments and voters?

    I’ll miss the beautiful house.

  2. Dear Bill-

    In response to your points,

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    1) By this line of reasoning, if carried to it’s logical extreme, we should donate our services because that would truly put the audience first. Why should they pay anything let alone for media, benefits, or ANYTHING? Your ‘threat to our continued livelihood’ would have no teeth since we would not have A LIVELIHOOD. One reason negotiations are important is to get away from the simplistic concept of who’s first and rather create a balance between what musicians need to survive on (and yes, that includes benefits) and what patrons see as satisfying those needs. All you have to do is talk to some generous board members who do understand that musicians are not out to gouge them as you imply (and they, not out to gouge us) but achieve a fair recognition for our years of dedication and devotion to enriching our culture. In short they want to express their gratitude and you have completely ignored that.

    2) Again, ‘non-profit’ is a simple buzz phrase that is supposed to discourage us from legitimizing our proposals. The profit in the arts, as in medicine (yes I would go that far) is it’s healing and beneficial effects on mind, body, and spirit. Take those ‘profits’ away and you deny the effects of beauty and negate what other cultures freely acknowledge as their cultural treasures–and support them in kind. What’s derailed here is not musicians but the idea that culture has no monetary value and should somehow continue to exist outside of monetary profit.

    3) The enemy is not us but fuzzy thinking about the value of culture, the balancing process of negotiations, and patrons who would actually disagree with what you have written.

    A quick scan of the ICSOM Wage/Scale Chart shows that orchestra musicians pay AND benefits (meaning all fringes) fall in the 30% to 50% of the budget, with the most by far in the 30% range. There is only one orchestra out of 51 that is 50.8% of the budget. It is basically the same for ROPA orchestras (looking at their Wage/Scale Charts) with only a few exceeding 50% coming in at 52% or 53%.

    Additionally, please check the following data: http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=46942

    William Cernota
    Chair, Chicago Lyric Opera Orchestra Members Committee

  3. Bill–these three points you made:

    1) The orchestra in your town is not there for your benefit. It is there for the benefit of the audience. The audience is paramount and any consideration about anything that does not put the audience first is seriously detrimental to your continued livelihood.
    2) One last thing for everybody – an orchestra is a very personnel-intensive organization. It’s expensive, and if you start adding benefits and everything else the cost/benefit ratio is fairly scary. Any Board Chair, Executive Director, or Musician Rep who advocates, presents, or otherwise condones any contract that squeezes every last penny out of the organization in salaries and benefits without an honest and practical fiscal plan that admits that we are in the non-profit business is doing irreparable damage to whatever institution they claim to serve.

    3) We have met the enemy and he is us.

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