Management at St. Louis Symphony muscling musicians!!!

[WoodSheddin]

Fellow tubist Michael Sanders gets to deal with these idiots who are (mis)managing the St. Louis Symphony. If you have a free moment feel free to fire off some emails to the management and media about the rediculous tactics being used my these management thugs.

http://www.stlsymphony.org/ - St. Louis Symphony Musicians Website<blockquote>
Hello and welcome, friends and supporters!!!

We, the Musicians of the Saint Louis Symphony, thank you so much for visiting our website. It is because of YOU that our orchestra exists, and to you all we are eternally grateful. On this website, we hope to provide you with a little background on this upsetting lockout situation, our views, concerns, and hopes for a speedy resolution. It will be continually changing, so please check back with us.

Thank you again for all of your support, and we hope so much to be playing for you all again very soon!
St. Louisians deserve the best in music!!!

The overwhelming generosity of the St. Louis community over the last three and a half years reflects everyone's interest in seeing the symphony orchestra remain a cultural treasure and a source of pride. Let's not lose that momentum by undermining the musical quality of what everyone has worked so hard to preserve. This isn't about us, this is about Saint Louis.

Our salary proposal to management begins with a pay cut, and then calls only for a modest increase after years of flat to lower pay over the last decade (management's proposal has us making less in 2008 than we did in 2001). During that time, we have seen our orchestra pay scales fall in comparison with orchestras in comparably sized cities such as Minneapolis, Cincinnati and Dallas; so much so that we are now toward the bottom of that group. We cannot retain and attract the caliber of players St. Louis has come to expect if salaries are cut yet again and we lose further ground against orchestras in other cities.

Many of us have been part of this community for 20 years or more, and several for more than 30 years. We have helped build this orchestra over that time and we have been part of the solution to the orchestra's financial troubles every time it was necessary over the last decade.

We want to be part of the solution now.

Although we are still very hopeful, there have been some setbacks. The negotiations were conducted respectfully, with a mutual desire to work together to find a fiscally and musically responsible solution. Since then, however,our health insurance has been cancelled abruptly, the innocent kids in our Youth Symphony have been locked out of Powell Hall, our auditions for horn and bass were unnecessarily cancelled- severely tarnishing our formerly impeccable reputation three union members were laid off on the same day they donated their time for our Tsunami Benefit Concert, our esteemed colleague Robert Ray was forbidden to conduct his own In Unison Chorus, and, most disturbingly, no indication has been made by our management that they have any new proposals or suggestions to bring to the negotiating table.

We have many new ideas, and we stand ready to return to the table to discuss them.

This is a great orchestra that all of us love, not only when we perform on stage at Powell Hall but also when we are out in the schools, churches, community centers and other places to play in small groups for free. We pay taxes here, we vote here, we raise our children here, we are part of this community and know how much this orchestra means to St Louis.

Four years ago, management went out of their way to assure the community that the artistic quality of our orchestra would not be harmed as a result of financial measures being taken. We are committed to making sure that that does not happen now, because we believe that you, our friends, supporters and audiences in the St. Louis community, deserve better than that from your orchestra!!!!


Speak out! Tell the world what you think by sending a letter to the editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Email your letters of support to the musicians of the St. Louis Symphony.

Visit the Dress Circle Forum at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch website to join in the discussion about the SLSO’s situation.

In addition to the obvious thanks to all of you in the St. Louis community who have supported us so vocally and generously, we must pay tribute to the musicians, orchestras, and individuals from all over the country who have sent us money and offered their support:

New York Philharmonic; Dallas Symphony; St. Paul Chamber Orchestra; Buffalo Philharmonic; New Jersey Symphony; Atlanta Federation of Musicians; Syracuse Symphony; Pittsburgh Symphony; Detroit Symphony, San Francisco Symphony Players Association.

Laurie M. Sokoloff (Baltimore Symphony), Mary C. Plaine (Baltimore Symphony), Thomas M. Hall (Chicago Symphony), Barbara Leibundguth and William C. Klaila (Minneapolis, MN), John B. Spirtas and Rebecca Marie DeStefanis (Silver Springs, MD).

Also, we would like to thank the many union members of various professions that have honored our picket line and supported us:

The stagehands
The electricians
The nurses
The teachers
</blockquote>

[Matt Good]

For fellow TubeNetters out there I would like to claify some points about this Saint Louis Symphony lockout. This is a lockout, not a strike. A strike is where employees refuse to work and a lockout is when an employer (SLSO Management) is refusing work to it's musicians. In this case the, SLSO management is laying seige upon it's musicians, trying to starve them out to accept their terms for a new contract which is unacceptable.

This is a lockout in the truest sense. On Monday morning January 3rd, the SLSO canceled a horn and bass audition that was to take place on the same day. When one of the horn players from the SLSO arrived at the hall to distribute a letter of apology from the musicians, her swipe card to gain access to the building denied her entry (management had changed the entry code on all the doors into Powell Symphony Hall to prevent musicians from entering!).

Also, a few days later, a SLSO cellist rushed her son to the hospital as he was having convulsions from a high fever and the next day, the hospital infomed this child's mother that her health insurance had been canceled!

This is without a doubt an ugly scene. What is at stake here is the future artistic quality of one of the great orchestras in North America. I have no idea how the SLSO management be able to raise money and attract the finest musicians for future vacancies. To find out what is going on with upcoming auditions with the SLSO, go to Drew McManus' article in Artsjournal.com at:

[http://www.artsjournal.com/adaptistration/]

I can only hope that this will end soon. As Sean posted, an email to SLSO management is helpful or a Letter to the Editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at: letters@post-dispatch.com

Sorry to go on a long rant. I personally find this situation to be heartbreaking.

-Matt Good
Tubist, Dallas Symphony

[Leland]

Also, a few days later, a SLSO cellist rushed her son to the hospital as he was having convulsions from a high fever and the next day, the hospital infomed this child's mother that her health insurance had been canceled!

Jeezus....

[JayW]

I am normally someone who would not sit down and do this much reading, but I just spent a better part of an hour reading every article/comment on this topic and it makes me queezy in the stomach. I thank Sean for bringing it to our attention, only wish you had provided the Pepto Bismol to go with it.
It is so incredibly sad that the "management" is so far off the deep end on this one that a city is a risk of losing it's orchestra, and that we as musicians risk losing a very valuable organization of muscal excellence. even more frightening is the chain effect I fear this having in other parts of the country. At a time when public money is very difficult to come by and a time when the arts seem to always be on the edge of being cut this seems like it may be one of the first pieces of the puzzle.
What is so unfortunate here is that most people who are not musicians probably have no idea what is going on. There seems, to me at least, to be an ever widening gap between artists and public support for the arts. I only wish there was something we could all do to make people aware of how much organizations such as the St Louis Symphony mean to their respective communities. It will probably be one of those things that will not be missed, until some event that had been taken for granted is missing live music...and only then will their be the outcry for support. I just hope it is not too late. I will be certainly writing a letter online as a concerned musician from NJ.

[Matt Good]

Is this even legal?

Unfortunately, the answer is yes, since they are no longer employees since the musicians are locked out. The musicians are most likely eligable for COBRA but this means they will have to pay for their health insurance premiums out of there own pockets. Here in the Dallas Symphony, our 2004 health insurance premiums were $530/month. To find out more what I'm writing about, go to: http://www.cobrainsurance.com/COBRA_Law.htm.

The cancellation of health insurance is a risk in any work stoppage. It would have been more civil if the SLSO management would have notified the musicians of there intentions before something catastophic happened.

-Matt Good

[Tabor]

it seems like the whole world is just going down the drain and most of it not for allmighty profit, but for THE HIGHEST POSSIBLE PROFIT MARGIN. It is following the pattern set by corporations. Already very profitable businesses do whatever they can to make THE HIGHEST POSSIBLE PROFIT MARGIN profit without regard to anything or anyone else. Following this pattern, they don't care about the music, the children, their city or country. I can't even write a publishable letter to a newspaper or the players adequately expressing my opinion of the SLSO management. Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Sean.

-T

[Joe Baker]

Is this even legal?

Unfortunately, the answer is yes,

Yes and no. I don't know the particulars of this situation, don't know if the musicians were still employed under an active contract or not, and don't know if the orchestra HAS THE MONEY to meet the musicians' demands (no one has addressed that question, which I find peculiar). But in any instance, if employer contributions to a group health insurance policy are halted, the employer has something like a week to notify the employee and spouse, who then have up to a month to continue coverage by paying the premiums themselves. This is exactly the same as my situation when I was laid off from my job about three years ago (also without warning). It's the rainy day you have to save for, no matter how you earn your living.
___________________________
Joe Baker, who paid about $4000 for six months' coverage before returning to work.

[Rick Denney]

Yes and no. I don't know the particulars of this situation, don't know if the musicians were still employed under an active contract or not, and don't know if the orchestra HAS THE MONEY to meet the musicians' demands (no one has addressed that question, which I find peculiar). But in any instance, if employer contributions to a group health insurance policy are halted, the employer has something like a week to notify the employee and spouse, who then have up to a month to continue coverage by paying the premiums themselves. This is exactly the same as my situation when I was laid off from my job about three years ago (also without warning). It's the rainy day you have to save for, no matter how you earn your living.

It would appear that the cessation of medical benefits was neither expected nor announced beforehand. COBRA requires a clear notification process, and it would appear that this was not followed.

The SLSO has supplemented its endowment by $16M in the last couple of years, and currently maintains a maximum endowment annual depletion of 5%. That is reasonably conservative, in my view (I'm designing my retirement around a 4% depletion, which is probably a bit too conservative). But reasonable conservatism may not be what you do during a crisis. The SLSO did not hire an arbitrator, and their current executive director is handling the negotiations himself. The current scorched-earth approach would not win him admiration among those who know how to negotiate labor disputes with professional employees.

It would also appear that the SLSO is using the term "strike" to describe what most labor regulators would call a "lockout". There was no strike vote by the union, only a rejection of a contract offer. The statement by SLSO that the musicians can continue to work under the terms of the previous contract rings hollow when the codes on the passkeys have been changed. How is it a strike when the musicians show up for work?

What we are seeing is hardball played by weekend softballers.

Rick "seeing incompetence more than greed, and not blaming corporate America for this one" Denney

[bberlien]

When studying this labor situation and those seen by other orchestras in the past, it is dumbfounding to witness the lack of transparency on the part of management. In disputes such as the one in Houston a couple of years back, the orchestra musicians asked to see the books, and were denied access. I imagine the musicians of the SLSO have similarly been restricted from knowing the full finacial picture of their orchestra. I simply cannot understand why the divide between management and musicians is so wide when each claim the end goal is to provide their community with the best possible orchestral music. It is possible that full transperancy on the part of management could go along way towards more efficient and professional negotiations.
I find find it sad that the management of the SLSO has now created such a negative situation, which can only damage the reputation and future of the orchestra. In the past few years, the SLSO had become a model for orchestras coming back from the brink with successful PR and aid from members of the community. One can only hope that this all gets resolved sooner than later, for the benefit of all involved.

[RyanSchultz]

BUMP