Cleveland Orchestra Workers\' Strike Labor

Cleveland Orchestra Workers' Strike

Labor and Union Studies

According to the Musicians of the Cleveland Orchestra Strike Statement (Rathbun 2010, n.pag.), the issue is compensation, but over a longer term than just this season. The union claims management has demanded "shared sacrifice" above and beyond cuts in their last two bargaining agreements, and rejected the musicians' offer of a wage freeze over the next contract year. These are longer-term compensation items rather than direct wages, but health care premiums come out of their paycheck unless they have some sort of other income. They also sacrificed guaranteed benefits for more risky investments that have not fared well over the Great Recession. Orchestra-related piecework has also dropped off, although specific reasons are not stated.

There is a strong assertion by the union that premier compensation is critical to their standing relative to the other leading world ensembles. High pay is what has allowed them to remain competitive, which means their ability to draw and retain the best players in the world, and thus their selling power as one of the world's best orchestras. This is a reputation issue, which depends on and is reflected by compensation levels. To the musicians, the increasing cuts correlate directly with the global competitiveness of the orchestra.

The statement says, "Our reputation is at stake and we have to stay competitive in compensation in order to stay competitive in quality" (Rathbun 2010). This is a "brand" issue for them, not simply income on payday. The word "competition" runs throughout the rest of their statements. They have to compete to get hired, although their success comes from collaboration. Other schools, ensembles and opportunities will bid away their talent if compensation is not "competitive." Concern with being "the best" also runs through the musicians' statement, being the best at what they do individually, and being the best relative to other symphonies.

There is also a process issue; the musicians claim management "belittles" them in negotiations according to the strike statement, publishing a press release stating the musicians only work part time. This has insulted the musicians, who counter it takes far more work off the clock to stay in the type of form their level of prestige requires (Rathbun 2010).

2. The musicians' Strike Statement also points out that the loss in global stock markets have reduced endowments, the level of donations and the workers' retirement investments, and assert that organizations in all the arts industries have suffered these same economic headwinds (Rathbun 2010). But there is far more to it than that. Those are results, not causes.

We would expect the Great Recession to depress discretionary consumption but this is not necessarily the case. The Pew Research Center (Taylor et al. 2010) reports that three out of five households have reduced spending (p. 69) and we can expect this is either from less disposable income or from expectations that they will need their incomes in the future, i.e. savings. But if orchestra consumption is a particular type of luxury good, it will be less dependent on the business cycle than many other goods because of the wealth many of these consumers already have. Consumption by middle-class consumers who feel the pinch either out of real income loss or expectations about future income, will increase a separation of access to culture that will harm the entire society, if we accept orchestra consumption has public goods characteristics. This will bother the poor who never had access to the symphony very little except for the service jobs they will lose.

This creates the climate we find in Cleveland, but also in Madison (2008), Seattle (2010) and Detroit (2011) for example. There are many more strike events if we widen the search to include professional musicians in general. This indicates a fairly high union density, but apparently it is not yet enough. Management always uses economic recession to push back on all compensation union or not, because this presents an opportunity to pursue the sole object of the firm across all industries, 'maximize profit.' Even if the Symphony is a nonprofit, which it probably is but which doesn't matter because the theory is the same, higher earnings whatever the configuration end up demonstrating better performance that justifies higher management compensation, or in a public goods setting lower ticket prices. There will never be a time when a firm voluntarily wants to increase compensation without a corresponding productivity increase. So hard times give management an opportunity to bust unions, by demanding concessions that create an incentive for individuals to opt out if they can, or vote the union out if they can't. None of these were mentioned in the Cleveland musicians' statement but these factors are inherent in our economic institutions.

Geography moderates competition and leverage in all these factors. We see the workers comparing their prestige, earnings and reputation to all other competing firms in the global marketplace, across which they travel to raise funds through performance, but also to maintain their "brand" image as one of the world's elite producers. On the other hand this geography limits their bargaining leverage by introducing competition on numerous levels. Other ensembles lure their best talent away with better pay or prestige. There is only one Cleveland Orchestra but there are many other orchestras around Cleveland, so their bargaining power is reduced to the degree consumers can substitute those or other goods altogether instead of going to the Symphony, and we imply from the strike statement that donors can also give to other arts industries instead of the conservatory if it falls out of their favor. Communications and travel play a part if reviewers around the world help create or destroy this reputation, or if consumers can easily go somewhere else without too much cost. The Cleveland musicians will never be able to achieve real market power until they can conquer these geographic features.

3. The drop in the value of their retirement investments was foreseeable perhaps but the donors and the orchestra's own management failed to see the global recession coming along with everyone else who assumed housing prices would never correct. The musicians may have been able to affect this when they made that agreement but this turn of events was inherently distant, or they never would have agreed to such an arrangement in the first place. International competition for their talent is likewise a global phenomenon that increases the more renowned they become, and until they can get rid of all the other orchestras in the world, this can be expected to persist. Since this is the very factor propping up their income level, changing this would be against their interest even if they could. The choice of management is also outside their control, or the workers would simply fire them, say for example if the ensemble was a cooperative, in which case the performers would vote the managers out of office.

If tastes changed and orchestra consumers found a substitute good altogether, demand would fall off and while the Cleveland orchestra could 'increase productivity' by performing at a higher standard, they would be powerless to stimulate demand if the product fell out of favor across the industry. Likewise factor costs like gas, airline or lodging price increases would both cut into local sales, and raise costs on the road. If ticket sales are dependent on consumers' disposable income, then earnings by all but the super-rich will determine orchestra consumption, and we can expect those to fall off in times of reduced purchasing power. These preferences are probably shaped in large part by critics and the media, which also suffer the vagaries of global fashion the musicians probably follow as much as control.

Nor could these workers affect the market forces which drove manufacturing out of the Rust Belt (Wakin 2010), which ultimately derive from political decisions made before many of these individuals were probably born. NAFTA; GATT; PATCO; these deliberate moves to undermine union power are environmental factors these workers inherited. Declining population drives lower income for local businesses, who probably donated a significant share of the orchestra's income in its heyday. This is a further result of globalization and changes to the institutions we built those regional industries under in the first place.

4. We see the musicians using lucrative residencies outside their region as a tool to coerce management. The traditional Miami performance series seems to be a major revenue stream, and the musicians struck wisely when they timed the withholding of their labor. Since their product depends on a high degree of skill and teamwork, they have significant bargaining power if management cannot simply hire scabs and expect them to perform at competitive levels. This derives from and contributes to the prestige value that both sides probably understand much more clearly now than before the strike. Not to make a bad pun, but they could directly affect the 'scales' they perform on stage with poor performance any time they liked, which they let management know by walking off the stage and leafleting the audience on one occasion (Wakin 2010). This amount of leverage is rare in more standardized industries where management can break pickets with contract labor.

We see them affecting public opinion through their press releases and media control, which portrays management as derisive. This attempts to pinch off donations, which is a battle of attrition that will hurt the musicians in the end, but they are willing to sacrifice this in order to win the race to the bottom they portray management has gamed them into. We see the musicians trying to build goodwill by donating ten performances a year, which is a direct pay issue analogous to taking work home in other industries, but which makes them appear reasonable and eager to work. Promising to reschedule missed concerts follows this type of PR strategy.

5. Without actually attending meetings at the table or on the shop floor, we have to speculate about many of the obstacles they faced trying to organize and act. Union leaders would not have leaked these obstacles to the press, because the next round of contract negotiations is always only a year away for them it seems. There were probably the usual morale issues, where individual workers saw their own interests as disconnected from the bargaining unit and grumbled amongst each other outside of work. Management probably aggravated this by the usual tactics of harassing individuals for perceived violations; imposing rules or increasing surveillance; and all the various behaviors employers have put to use on shop floors since before Mother Jones walked the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The mainstream press, embodied by the New York Times, seems to have given them equal space with management (Wakin 2010), which is unusual considering huge firms like NYT have a direct stake in keeping examples of union power away from their own employees on the production line. But a deeper inspection reveals relatively sparse coverage in the global press, with much of the analysis coming through blogs or the culture sections of Sunday editions; indymedia and other 'radical' outlets rather than Ottoway, Inc. syndicate papers like the Wall Street Journal. This is the typical blackout most union action runs up against, and many of the links I tried on Google have since been taken down. There seems to be no record I could find of proceedings from the University of Michigan Orchestral Summit mentioned in Horowitz (2010), although that may just not be on the Internet. The only record that remains is from the Socialist or union side and the rest just disappears. This is the concerted attack all unions have faced for the last half century, which seems to have gone better for the musicians than is often the case.

6. Congressman Dennis Kucinich penned a letter on the musicians' behalf, along with letters of support from prominent critics and concertgoers. The other regional unions and even musicians as far away as Seattle supported them before and after, by engaging management in their own workplaces, which gave the Cleveland union a context in which to mold public opinion as part of a broader phenomenon taking place coast to coast. We can expect they found support from many in their local community although that record is fading away over time.

Their opponents run all the way from the bargaining table, i.e. management, to the big players behind union busting, the corporate interests who began offshoring Cleveland jobs in order to cut costs and maximize profits in the first place (Wakin 2010). The Tea Party. The Wall Street Journal and probably the Republican elected officials in their own home town. I speculate, but these are the big ideological players who have pushed unionism almost completely out of the American workplace, relentlessly searching for lower input costs (especially labor) and multinational corporate power. Many of these players were probably corporations these workers owned stock in through their very own retirement plans, which the corporations used to generate profits that accrue to the very people who underwrite union busting on Capitol Hill. But I don't see any major traditional villains like a governor calling in the national guard, or the usual cast of Pinkerton men or Phelps detectives. This was not a port or mine strike after all.