Drew McManus on the orchestra business.
In what feels like lifetimes ago, I launched the Gig After Gas Online Calculator in 2008 (shout out to Jason Heath for his help then). The tool was a response to rising costs of gas prices following the housing meltdown. In hindsight it was super simple but at the time, required a good bit of code to work reliably. A musician could enter their per-service pay, gas mileage, price per gallon, …
After failing to offer musicians a contract for the 2021-22 season, the musicians of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra (MA) and Local 171 of the American Federation of Musicians, which represents the unionized musicians, filed a complaint against the employer with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on September 4, 2021. The NLRB recently ruled in favor of the musicians and ordered the employer to pay the musicians $274,406 in back wages. …
One of the consistently popular posts at Adaptation is the negotiation historical timeline. Originally written in 2004, it started with the 1950s and ended with the 2010s. Having said that, the 2010 section was based on barely half a decade of time. Given the firm toehold we have on 2022, it’s high time to update the article with a clear retrospective on the 2010s and to shed a little light on …
As a quick follow-up to yesterday’s post, I wanted to point out an article by Janelle Gelfand in the 11/6/21 edition of the Cincinnati Business Courier that examines the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s (CSO) recently ratified collective bargaining agreement (CBA). Nutshell: The CSO opted against shuttering over the pandemic and instead, the stakeholders worked to find ways to present concert activity as safely as possible. Over the pandemic, the CSO opted for …
All it took was more than a year and some of the pandemic-era labor dispute PR for the Colorado Springs Philharmonic’s executive leadership to end up pretty much right where could have landed a few short months into their dispute. If you aren’t already familiar with the details, things became ugly following the employer’s decision to cancel the union agreement. Since then, the musicians offered sizeable financial and work rules concessions, just like …