The Detroit Symphony Orchestra is an excellent example of what's wrong with negotiations in this country. The BASE salary for a musician is $105,000 a year. In DETROIT. The UNION has rejected the 28% cut that is being proposed to keep the symphony running. In addition, two brand new buildings have been built recently to house the symphony; though there is an endowment upon which the symphony has been living, that is obviously being diminished rapidly.
Few businesses which have previously sustained the symphony through donations can afford to continue donations.
DSO currently has a 10.3 million dollar deficit.
Musicians have pension plans and health care; from their calendar found here it's difficult to tell how many working days are required of the musicians, but there are numerous opportunities around the city and they seem to be quite active. It's hard to imagine, however, that all the musicians put in the usual five day a week, 40 hours a week work weeks that must Americans put in.
While it is true that musicians are highly skilled, their salaries are to be envied by most Americans. The fact that they are not willing to take a pay cut that will still keep their pay ABOVE the average American's pay is discouraging.
IOW, what planet do these people live on? The city is broke. The state is broke. Businesses have no extra money.
They play violins. And clarinets. And drums.
But they want to continue their salaries even when their organization is drowning in debt and extinction is near.
In prosperous times, it is great to pay musicians for the beauty they bring into our lives. But how many people can afford symphony tickets now at $50-60 a concert? In addition, their website is horrendous, filled with errors and "inactive" pages.
So good luck with that.
We wish you luck and hope you can stay, but survival is survival.
Detroit. A beautiful, horrible decline in pictures.
1) The DSO musicians have offered to take a 22% paycut-not to "continue" their salaries as you say
ReplyDelete2) Most musicians put in much more than a 40 hour work week-like a baseball player the majority of the work for the week is in personal practice-not just the "game".
3) You might want to check this link to see what other cities pay their musicians:
http://www.najp.org/articles/2010/08/symphony-orchestras-by-the-num.html
4) The building you mention is much of the problem with the symphony now. Instead of paying it off with money that was raised for it, the management at the time decided to put the money in the stock market. Ironic that the great orchestra that building was built to house is now being sacrificed to save the building.
Why do you demean what they do as if it were a trivial task? Perhaps while you were playing as a child these people were spending hours instead mastering their instruments. The chances of getting into an orchestra of this level is even harder than getting on a professional sports team. Do you feel the same for people who throw balls?
A lot of professionals put many hours in at "practice" or its equivalent. Many hard working individuals do not have the luxury of an ample salary that covers those hours at home.
ReplyDeleteI looked at your link. It is immaterial, really. The point isn't comparing what other musicians are making: the point is that Detroit is a dying city. People who work in Detroit have to realize that conditions aren't what they were.
On a larger scale, if a baseball team could not sustain itself through ticket sales, etc., then, of course, it should not survive. The public cannot maintain these activities, no matter how nice or pleasant they make our lives, if they cannot pay for themselves.
No one's demeaning anything. What's being demeaned is the attitude that, just because it's been this way, it should always stay this way. Unions have bargained their workers out of jobs, even while building huge monuments to themselves through expensive buildings and golf courses and the like.
This is why nothing is "made in America" anymore. It's simply too expensive.
The same thing is true for teachers, city and state workers, any workers whose salaries and pensions are paid by the public but are now unsustainable.
Reality has to be addressed.
The holier-than-thou "they practiced really hard as children" argument is specious.
Life's tough sometimes.
You are right-Detroit is a dying city and letting one the worlds great instutions go will be one more coffin nail. This attitude is what seems to make Detroit Detroit. Cleveland which was just rated to worst American city at least values its orchestra-perhaps because like Detroit they have little else to offer.
ReplyDeleteBy the way-who paid for the stadiums?