Business As Usual
From The Wall Street Journal today:
Within hours of when its season-opening concert by The Philadelphia
Orchestra was set to begin, Carnegie Hall was forced to cancel that
performance Wednesday after its stagehands, represented by IATSE/Local
One, went on strike. The unprecedented walkout follows a week of
terrible news for classical music in the U.S., in which the music
director of the Minnesota Orchestra resigned over its musicians'
contract disputes, and New York City Opera announced it was filing for
bankruptcy, ending its 70-year run as "the People's Opera." The
Philadelphia Orchestra, locked out of Carnegie and still recovering from
its own bankruptcy, announced that it would instead present a free
concert at its home in downtown Philadelphia.
Carnegie says that the union's demands would compromise the hall's
mission by diverting significant funds away from education into
stagehand fees. "In opting to strike, the stagehands have rejected a
proposed new agreement that includes annual wage and benefit increases
and continued jurisdiction throughout Carnegie Hall's concert venues."
Calling the demand "unprecedented," Clive Gillinson, the executive and
artistic director of Carnegie Hall, adds that "the stagehands have one
of the most lucrative contracts in the industry," and the planned
activities for the education spaces "have nothing to do with the
performance-related work they do in the concert halls."
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