Trust issues at root of DSO strike set to begin today
BY MARK STRYKER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Detroit Symphony Orchestra musicians met newly appointed president Anne Parsons with hugs before the first concert of the season six years ago. Today she'll see picket signs.
The players are set to strike today, threatening the start of the season later this week and capping the most volatile DSO labor conflict since the 1980s. The parties remain deeply divided over pay cuts and work rules. But the biggest threat to the DSO may be the breakdown in communication and trust that could make it difficult, perhaps impossible, to rebuild in the wake of a settlement.
Musicians feel betrayed and frozen out of decision making; management says the players aren't listening and aren't acting responsibly.
"When parties don't trust or believe each other, effective negotiations become much more difficult," said Robert Mnookin, head of the Program of Negotiation at Harvard Law School, who added that Detroit's economy would challenge even great problem solvers with good relationships.
"A serious strike could jeopardize the future of the orchestra. You see, in essence, a game of chicken where if there's a crack-up, it's plain there will be no winner."
Orchestra strikes don't come out of the blue. The breakdown of trust between parties can be a slow march to the scaffold.
After last-ditch talks failed Sept. 24, management imposed the terms of its final contract offer, prompting the strike. But beyond displeasure with contract details, the musicians are smarting from a long list of perceived injustices they say leave them with no control over their destiny -- a series concessionary contracts, claims that management reneged on its promise of artistic excellence and new provisions they say weaken traditional tenure and the musicians' ability to influence policy.
"Management would like the musicians simply to play what and where they are told and no longer volunteer their ideas and efforts to shaping the institution," said cellist Haden McKay, a musician spokesman.
Parsons disagreed. She pointed to artistic goals that recently came to fruition, including hiring Leonard Slatkin as music director, recording and touring. She said management and the board have invited input, but the players' blanket rejection of proposals and insistence on a contract the DSO can't afford make it impossible to dig out of the deep financial hole.
"This staff and board have been consistently direct, honest and transparent with our musicians," she said. "I think the players often simply don't like what we tell them."
In the wake of Michigan's distressed economy, DSO has been running life-threatening, multimillion-dollar annual deficits. The orchestra expects to lose $9 million in 2010 and would exhaust its cash reserves in less than three years if losses continue at the current rate.
The imposed contract slices base pay for veterans about 30% from $104,650 to $70,200, rising to $73,200 in three years. (Nearly all players make more than scale.) The contract cuts salaries for incoming players by 42 percent to $61,200, and introduces sweeping work-rule changes that fold teaching, chamber music and outreach into the job for all players. Players are currently paid extra for such work, though some also volunteer their time.
The imposed contract guarantees 33 weeks of work plus three weeks of paid vacation, as well as the possibility of optional work for additional pay. Currently the players enjoy a 52-week contract including nine weeks of paid vacation.
The musicians had countered with a 22% cut to $82,000, with increases to $96,600 in the third year. The players say accepting steeper reductions will mortgage the DSO's artistic integrity, making it impossible to retain and recruit top talent compared to peer symphonies. They reject the two-tier wage system and also say the work rule changes would dilute the professionalism of the ensemble.
The seeds of the current dispute began with the concessionary contract signed in 2004, but the ill will reached fever pitch during the contentious 2007 negotiations. The players threatened to strike before agreeing to more givebacks in exchange for a healthy third-year bump.
The next watershed was the strategic plan ratified in fall 2008 after years of collaborative work by management, the board, musicians and Slatkin. Players were enthusiastic about their involvement. The plan is a blueprint identifying broad goals for artistic excellence, audience development, education, fund-raising and finances.
One item says the DSO will "attract, nurture and retain the highest quality musicians, preserving the DSO as a destination orchestra and one of the 10 leading orchestras in America." But oboist Shelley Heron has written that she was stunned when management appeared to turn away from the plan seven months later.
"Our strategic plan ... was essentially being shelved so that the powers-that-be could ram home massive change using the financial crisis as cover," Heron wrote at Arts Dispatch, a blog run by arts journalist Barry Johnson of Portland, Ore.
Parsons said that she and the board remained committed to meeting the high international artistic standards outlined in the plan. But she said creating a sustainable business was also a key goal, and the unprecedented economic freefall and tenuous DSO finances demanded decisive action.
"We finished the plan and the world collapsed around us," she said.
Parsons also said that two consecutive board chairs told the players that the longer it took to reach a deal, the more severe reductions would have to be, given deteriorating economic conditions. And she said that work-rule changes were first put on the table during the 2007 contract negotiations but could not be discussed during strategic planning because the ground rules were that those sessions were not to be a proxy for collective bargaining.
The intensity of the strain at the DSO may be extreme, but cold war tensions are ubiquitous in orchestras. Several studies document high levels of unhappiness, discontent and stress among American symphony musicians. The players have little or no control over the music selected, a conductor tells them how to play and, except for those sitting in solo chairs, they have little expressive freedom. Violinists often aspire to solo careers and may consider working as a section player to be failure.
"All these frustrations have no regular outlet except the collective bargaining process," writes Harvard's Mnookin in "Bargaining with the Devil" (Simon & Schuster, $27).
One result is dense contracts jammed with arcane work rules regulating every detail of daily life in the orchestra, from the precise length of rehearsals to the maximum length of bus rides on tour. Another is that the ability to call a strike is the one arena in which players have historically held real power. Finding ways to nurture open and honest lines of communication between management and musicians doesn't always build trust or guarantee labor peace, but it makes them a lot more likely.
"When people are angry and fearful, it's hard for them to think clearly about their own long-term interests," said Mnookin, who acted as a consultant to the San Francisco Symphony following a bitter strike in 1996. "Of course, everyone will have a narrative about the past, but there's always a narrative on the other side, and helping parties understand there are different perspectives can be constructive. The challenge is to get beyond posturing."
Contact MARK STRYKER : 313-222-6459 or
mstryker@freepress.com