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MICHAEL KRANTZ
At first blush, the rarefied world of classical music doesn't sound like prime Ross Perot turf. But the would-be presidential protectionist might want to check out the angry sidewalks outside the Academy of Music in Center City Philadelphia. There the Philadelphia Orchestra is conducting a two-week-old strike that demonstrates how the cutthroat global economy can threaten even the highest-browed salaries and jobs. Violinists and brass sections may not be assembly-line workers, but they're getting hammered by foreign competitors all the same.
The current dissonance began after the fallen Berlin Wall unleashed a crescendo of classical music upon appreciative Western ears. Surprise hits bloomed from such unlikely fare as Bulgarian women's choirs and Henryk Gorecki's Third Symphony. "Record labels from Eastern Europe are now being picked up and distributed here," says one American industry executive. "They're hits, they're cheap, and they have incredible musicians."
The bottom stave in the score for American orchestras: flat record sales, and thinning TV and radio opportunities. Factor in decreased government funding and less generous corporate gifts, and the result is rancorous negotiations between orchestra managements and the American Federation of Musicians, the union that represents most major U.S. orchestras. In recent weeks strikers from both the Oregon and Atlanta symphonies hit the bricks, while the San Diego and Sacramento orchestras filed for bankruptcy; Charlotte barely averted the same fate last spring.
But the Philadelphia strike--the group's first work stoppage since 1966--could set the tone for the industry's future. The Philadelphia Orchestra is one of the nation's majors (the others include New York, Chicago, Cleveland and Boston), and the stakes--and emotions--are appropriately high. "We are on strike not for money," says Joseph Parente, president of Local 77 of the A.F.M., trying to sound a high note, "but for the prestige and future of orchestral music." Make no mistake: the two sides are fighting over the usual terrain of benefits and salary hikes--the Philadelphia musicians today have a base salary of about $75,000 a year. The orchestra, which has an annual budget of about $28 million, has been running in the red, and the board wants the symphony to play within its means.
But the primary conflict is over the up-front bonuses union members receive for recordings, and for radio and TV appearances. This hitherto minimal figure jumped to $5,500 in 1995 and $6,000 in '96, owing primarily to a lucrative four-year recording contract with EMI. Last month, though, EMI, which now has cheaper options in Europe, declined to renew the contract, and management--i.e., the Philadelphia Orchestra Association--wants the annual bonus reduced to $2,000. That amounts to a 5% pay cut.
Management is in harmony with Parente on the reason for the job action. "This is not an economic strike," agrees POA negotiator Ralph Craviso. But that's where the duet diverges. The conflict, says Craviso, a veteran of the airline-industry labor wars, centers on "where symphonies are going to go in the future: Are musicians going to recognize that this is an industry problem, or are they going to insist on an unrealistic level of guaranteed income?"
That depends on how you define "unrealistic." The union insists its up-front bonus be raised to $8,000--and that management find the work to pay the freight. Says Parente: "Chicago has 39 weeks of radio broadcast; Cincinnati has three national TV specials. We've got zip. Management has done nothing to secure the future of the Orchestra."
POA president Joseph Kluger responds that outside revenue is shrinking everywhere. "These other orchestras that are finishing up contracts," he says, "will not, in my opinion, have those contracts renewed." Indeed, the Philips label canceled a planned recording of the Boston Symphony's version of the Ravel opera L'enfant et les sortileges. Conductor Seiji Ozawa didn't bother to hide his frustration. "Recording is a very big problem for all the important American orchestras right now," he told the Boston Globe. "All my own recording offers come from Europe."
The POA's contract proposal offers its musicians a way around the big music companies--a jointly run record label to produce and market the orchestra's discs. Members of the Philadelphia, says Kluger, "would be the first in this country to receive royalties for the rest of their lives." The union likes the idea but still insists on the up-front payment. "If EMI can't sell records," Parente snipes, "then certainly Joe Kluger can't." Clearly, the nation's musicians and management remain a house divided. What's unclear is how much more conflict the struggling industry can stand.