[Trombone-l] Re: union/radio city

[Moran, Doug]

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 Dansatt at aol.com wrote:

> Yes, some of the people in the orchestra make (made) a good deal of  money
> for 10 weeks work.  You have to realize, however, that during those  10 weeks,
> there are well over 200 shows to play.  In the weeks before and  right after
> Christmas, there are around 32 shows in one week, with as many  as six  90
> minute shows A DAY.  It's an absolutely brutal job as  far as playing gigs go, and
> the members of the orchestra earn every penny  that they make.  I was never a
> member of the orchestra, but before moving  to Florida, I was a frequent sub.
> It's a really nice group of people, and  it's the sense of family there that
> keeps most of the people doing the  gig.  I can guarantee you that nobody was
> looking to get paid  when  they subbed out.  While I don't know the exact
> details of the settlement, I  do know that the musicians will now have to
> reaudition periodically to keep  their jobs (try telling that to any group of tenured
> symphony musicians), the  orchestra size will be reduced from a mind boggling
> 35 members to 25 over the  next couple of years, and "overtime" will be
> severely limited, eliminating a pay  system that has worked just fine for years and
> years.  Now instead of  making the premium for the third show and beyond in a
> day, musicians will not  make the premium until their 13th show of a week.
> Subs will not be allowed  to play more than 12 shows in a week, thus eliminating
> any premium pay at all  for them.  All this after the Christmas Show grossed
> somewhere around (in  Dr. Evil's voice) 100 MILLION DOLLARS last season.
> Those damned  greedy musicians!

Thanks for posting this Dan.  I've read quite a bit about this and this is
the most direct information I've seen.

What would be very interesting is to see the net profit figures and where
the money went to.  Not just last season, but the last 5 or 10 seasons.

This same thing is happening in the USA across all worker categories.
High paying jobs going away and replaced with lower paying jobs.  It is
not discriminating against any job category.  Some of it is continued
corporate greed, some perhaps the "world economy" we read about, and a few
other reasons come to mind.  Benefits and pension plans are prime targets
today as well.

I hate to see musicians getting hit, but I also hate to see anyone have a
lower standard of living due to no fault of their own.

Doug Moran