The Cleveland Orchestra kept its promise to play its free annual Martin Luther King Day concert Sunday night to a sold out crowd. Then, at midnight, with no agreement with management, the musicians kept another promise: they went on strike.
Monday morning, about half of the orchestra’s players stood outside Severance Hall, telling the public why they stopped working for the first time in 30 years.
RATHBUN: The purpose of the whole institution is to put a world class ensemble on stage...
That’s oboist Jeff Rathbun, who heads the musicians’ negotiating committee.
At issue here is management’s proposal that the musicians take a one-year 5% pay cut. Management points to a $2 million deficit and dwindling endowment as reasons for the musicians to accept concessions. The union proposes maintaining players’ current salaries through August, arguing that they’ve already made numerous concessions over the past few years. But Rathbun says accepting the new cuts would be the beginning of the end of the orchestra’s status as a destination orchestra.
RATHBUN: We will go down a slippery slope of not being able to attract the best talent here just like any sports team wouldn’t be able to attract the best talent if they were trying to build a championship team.
Until now, the Cleveland Orchestra’s reputation thrived both here in Cleveland and around the world. But its finances have been hammered both by the economy and by diminishing interest in classical music. Concerts now rarely sell out. Gary Hanson is the orchestra’s Executive Director.
HANSON: We’ve been struggling against the economy of this community and then with the global economic downturn in 2008, our situation became one in which everyone needed to make a sacrifice.
Hanson and the rest of the management staff took pay cuts last year and he says the union musicians should share in the sacrifice. The players, who generally make in the low six-figures, say their pay has fallen behind their peers. The orchestra currently ranks seventh in compensation, behind those in cities like Boston and San Francisco. But Hanson says Cleveland’s low cost of living should also be considered.
HANSON: Financial stability is at least as important to artistic excellence as is compensation comparisons with musicians in larger cities.
The Cleveland Orchestra isn’t the only one with a labor dispute. The Seattle Symphony musicians may also strike soon.
At Sunday night’s concert, Clarence Gilmore seemed to support management’s side of the dispute.
GILMORE: Everywhere in the United States we have to take some kind of concession or cut so I don’t see why the orchestra or people in Northeast Ohio think they could be exempt from it.
But Brenda Ellner says the musicians need support at all costs.
ELLNER: We have to dig deep. If this is what the musicians need, we need to find a way to reconcile this.
Longtime music critic Tim Page is a professor at the University of Southern California. He says a strike like this could cause lasting damage.
PAGE: Strikes tend to leave long memories between players and management. They’re never good things and a lot of healing is necessary.
The strike has already cancelled Monday night’s planned concert at Indiana University, part of a new residency program there. And, next week, the orchestra is scheduled to travel to Miami for its lucrative annual concert series. That too is now in doubt.