Klarinet Archive - Posting 000595.txt from 1999/09
From: "Michael Whight" <michael@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] Phila Orch salaries
Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 09:48:56 -0400
----- Original Message -----
From: Ken Wolman <Ken.Wolman@-----.com>
Subject: Re: [kl] Phila Orch salaries
michael@-----.uk wrote:
>
> Compare this with the deal given to the members of the Philharmonia
> Orchestra in London.
>
> 600 services per year
> No holiday pay
> No pension
> 7% cut in touring rates
> No pay increase for 10 years
> No employees rights
> 3-4 months foreign touring per year
>
> Rank and file salary about £28 000
> Principal salary about £ 35 000
>
> The US doesn't have much to complain about does it? :>)
I suppose not, and the situation described here is unbelievable. The
other word that comes to mind is "Dickensian" or a more sanitized
version of labor conditions in a coal mine as Zola described them in
"Germinal." Was this so-called deal cut to settle a strike or is it
more likely to start one? If the latter, such a reaction would make
perfect sense.
Strikes are pretty well unheard of over here. The last one I can remember
was with the BBC orchestras some 20 years or so ago. The BBC orchestras are
contract orchestras and have a salary fixed with terms and conditions of
employment whereas the London orchestras are self governing outfits with
self employed musicians who agree to do all or most of the work offered.
With this arrangement you are only officially booked when you get the next
monthly schedule 6 weeks in advance. You can be sacked with 6 weeks notice
without reason and with no rights to appeal or redundancy pay. There is also
no legal claim against unfair dismissal as no player is officially emloyed.
A couple of clarifications. First, do the musicians earn any extra fee
for recording work or is this part of the "600 services" clause?
Musicians get paid for the work they do. If there is no work then you get no
pay.
Second, what specifically is an "employee right"? I am picturing things
like a conductor terminating a musician for reasons having nothing to do
with musicianship, just because of a personality conflict, because the
conductor has someone he wants to hire...well, almost anything can cover
the situation. I take it, then, that there is no mechanism to appeal an
arbitrary dismissal or anything else that might fall under the general
header of "employee rights."
Officially conductors do not have hire and fire powers but because of a
scarcity of work and a ridiculous level of funding ( the Philharmonia puts
on a world class season, is the most recorded orchestra in the world etc
etc for £730 000 per annum) if a player is judged to be putting work at risk
he/she is on dangerous ground.
And if the British tax structure remains what I gather it has been for
years now, the ladies and gentlemen of the Phiharmonia sound like
they're getting monumentally screwed over.
Too right.
Are the labor policies of other British orchestras this wretched that
the Philharmonia management thinks they can get away with this? What
about orchestras on the Continent?
The self governing orchestras are all the same. All run by a board of
PLAYERS with a hired Managing Director. Continental orchestras are funded
and run in a totally different way.
The British orchestras deserve better and are not helped by governments who
see them as either being elitist or loss making liabilities or by a weak
union that actually negociates lower fees for it's membership in the belief
that it will attract more work. It's not working.
I was principal clarinet with the Philharmonia from 1990 and I left last
December ( I wasn't sacked!). They're still trying to find a successor if
anyone is interested. It's a fantastic orchestra.
Ken
--
Ken Wolman dbtrader Deutsche Bank, N.A.
1251 Sixth Avenue, New York, NY 10019 212-469-6494
Teach someone to fish and you have helped them survive another day.
Teach them to surf the Net and they won't bother you for weeks.
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