From my inbox....

There hasn't been a lot of news on the Symphony strike in the past few days, though I know the story was featured on the NewsHour last night (I haven't had a chance to watch it yet). I'm not even sure if the sides are currently negotiating, though one would hope so. Some of the best comments I receive are via email rather than through the comments section. Here's one from a regular reader, a 30-year subscriber to the Symphony who requested I not print his name, who writes:

... As for the strike, I'm of 2 minds. Since I don't work there, I don't know what the working conditions and relations between the management and the players are, so I'll take the players at their word that it's about the money (as they originally stated, though the comments from Nicole Cash, the horn player, on your blog raised some interesting questions -- like performing on Christmas Eve -- that's just unacceptable).

As someone who runs a small nonprofit organization, but also just as a member of the public, it's hard to feel sympathy for players whose base salary is $140+ K and average/median is $20 K higher with other fees thrown in, and 10 weeks vacation on top of that. And David Herbert, with 16 weeks vacation and $210+ K year, sounds spoiled to claim he gets little support from management. I recall reading some years ago that he had set up a company to sell/distribute high end timpani sticks. So he has time for lots of other things. Additionally, the previous contract sounded quite generous with its 15+% increase over 3 years. So given the general state of the economy right now, they should consider themselves fortunate. And many have time to be on the faculty at the Conservatory, too, so their time can't be too loaded up with Symphony obligations.

And to need to be the highest-paid in the country is kind of ludicrous (not that they aren't an outstanding orchestra and the cost of living high here. But it's high in New York and in Boston, too).

On the other hand, if management is giving themselves bonuses and the players not receiving any increase (as the original offer apparently was, at least for the first year) that's not fair either. I'm also surprised to read how much MTT is paid in comparison to conductors at other orchestras. He's making out very well. Also surprising that the musicians' payroll is only 23% of the total budget. I would have thought it was higher. I did think that the complaint about the 100th Anniversary was a bit silly, though I'd be hard-pressed to tell you what was so special that it would have cost $11 million. But I'm not an events planner.

The big time lag between the expiration of the old contract and the start of negotiations is troubling. That seems to be a failure on the part of management. They should have been negotiating and proposing long before the contract expired -- which is what I think they did after the last strike.

Whether it's all worth going on strike over, I don't know, but I also don't know how else one makes it clear that the situation might not be fair.  I'm not a labor specialist. I'm not sure it was well thought out. I think it's causing a lot of ill-will right now that might be hard to fix, and that's an added cost that should have been considered. On the other hand, the regular audience might just be glad to have it all over with when/if it's settled and just move on.

One thought occurs to me: the Berlin Philharmonic and the London Symphony are both self-governing orchestras. Maybe it's time San Francisco explored that option. It would be an interesting experiment.

Set adrift...

The strike by the San Francisco Symphony is now into its 2nd week and the musicians should have been on the East Coast this weekend performing a four concert tour with Yuja Wang. Instead, everyone is at home writing letters to Board President Sakurako Fisher or busking in front of Davies and elsewhere in Hayes Valley. As has been the case so far, Janos Gereben has the best account of where things stand over at SF Classical Voice, but reading his latest summary, posted on Wednesday, only makes it painfully apparent how horrible communication has been on both sides of this contretemps. There are far too many unanswered accusations and claims, and more insinuation than facts and proposals. Apparently, the ability to reason and effectively make one's case to the public has been lost to both sides.

One small, but positive change that occurred this week is the musicians seemingly realized they made a grave tactical error out of the gate in the tone and language used toward and about the Symphony's administration and have been trying to ameliorate that via a series of open letters to Fisher- all of which can be read on the musicians' Facebook page or website. It may too late to remove the bad taste left by David Herbert and Dave Gaudry's initial remarks, but at least no one else is waving around a spoon with a turd stuck on the end and screaming "eat this!" Thankfully those two have gone silent.

One small note: in the comments of an earlier post this week (hint: look for the picture taken from Blazing Saddles), a member of the orchestra reveals her own interesting perspective on all of this, and gives a sense of some of the issues which I don't believe have been discussed publicly anywhere else.

Shake it now! Shake it like a Polaroid picture... Hey Ya!

I was cc'd on an unusual email this afternoon:

Dear Count de Monet,

Over at San Francisco Classical Voice, Janos Gereben has the most up-to-date information regarding the Symphony’s strike, including some information that will likely further solidify that portion of public opinion that thinks while it certainly would be nice to see  the musicians (and everyone else whose work we love, respect, and admire) make more money, they have it pretty good overall and should probably just shut the fuck up and continue to enjoy their 10 weeks of paid vacation, very generous pensions, fully-employer-funded medical insurance for themselves, salaries that allow them to live comfortably, if not well, while living in one of the world’s greatest cities and having a job most people could only dream about. Because you know what?  The alternative is not getting paid a few thousand dollars more a year like they do in LA or Chicago (and who the hell in their right mind and currently living in San Francisco would willingly trade living in this easiest of all cities for the traffic of the former and the winter of the latter?) Are you kidding me? You don’t even have to own a car here, which saves you easily $12,000 a year! No, the alternative, as we see it, is to live like the rest of us- your audience, who for the most part would love to have benefits like that, and know we never will, because  those days are long gone for us, and only remain available for special people with special skills, like classical musicians, and we don’t begrudge them this, because we know, we really do know, that very few people on Earth can do your job as well as you do and that’s why we come and listen to you in the first place. We love you guys- really we do. Until you start whining, that is. And you know what? Every company has a boss. And the boss makes a lot more money than the “talent.”  You think you have it bad? The CEO of the my company makes 275 times the amount that I do. That’s right- 275 times what I do. According to the management and board of my employer it would take 275 of me to do his job. Do you think I like that? Do you know how undervalued and unappreciated I feel when I think about that? Do you know how much that hurts me deep inside. Right here. No, right here. Thank you. More to the point, do you even care? No, of course you don’t, and I wouldn’t bother you with my complaints about it but now that you’ve brought up how unfair life is… Oh wait. Sorry. I’m being so self-absorbed right now I can hardly stand my David Herbert ass-self. So shut up and play some music already, ok? Because please, no one likes a sniveler. Who am I calling a sniveler? Hmm, maybe it’s that person, the whining complainer, the hole reeking of entitlement, who receives 60% more vacation time than his peers (that’s 16 weeks total), makes $214,000 a year for his trouble and claims that management doesn’t “value and support” him, even though it offered him a raise and a bonus to stay with the orchestra. Yes, I’m talking about you, Mr. Soon-to-be-Principal Timpani-of-the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Just go east already because you are annoying the piss out of me with your whining and the guy from Boston is better than you anyway and maybe we can get him to take your place. Yes, we can win the damn World Series without Buster Posey and what kind of fucked up analogy is that anyway and why the fuck are you guys wearing Dodgers caps? What the fuck does baseball have to do with classical music performance? This is real life, not some fucking Don DeLillo novel! Take off those fucking baseball caps- don’t you know Mark Inouye is the only one of you who doesn’t look completely ridiculous in one?

Sincerely yours,

"The P. Boy"

Wait for the shake!

Who knew this guy was a principal with the San Francisco Symphony?

"De Monet! Say it... Mo - nay! Say it with me, Mo - nay!"

Here's the latest on the Symphony strike, from the Symphony's Press Dept.:

Due to the labor stoppage at the San Francisco Symphony, the concert scheduled for 8:00 p.m. on Friday, March 15 has been cancelled and will not be rescheduled.  Talks are moving forward after a 13-hour negotiation session that continued into the early morning hours, and more talks are scheduled for Friday. No further concert cancellations have been announced at this time. 

Patrons with tickets to the March 15 concert may exchange them for an upcoming concert, donate their tickets, or receive a refund.  Patrons can obtain information on concerts, ticket exchanges and customer service by calling the Symphony Box Office at (415) 864-6000 (between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and from noon-6 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday) and on the Orchestra’s website at www.sfsymphony.org. 

An update for the Saturday, March 16 8:00 p.m. concert will be issued Saturday morning, and an update for the Sunday, March 17 2:00 p.m. concert will be issued by Saturday night, March 16. Ticket holders for these concerts with email addresses or phone numbers will receive direct notification from the Symphony. All news will also be posted at www.sfsymphony.org.

The Musicians Union of San Francisco, Local 6, American Federation of Musicians, representing musicians of the San Francisco Symphony, and the orchestra administration are working toward a new three-year contract.