Philadelphia Orchestra Musicians Authorize Strike

The orchestra’s musicians have voted to authorize a strike if no contract agreements are made before their current contract expires in September 2023

 

Agreed by 95% of those voting members of the Philadelphia Orchestra (PO), the ensemble’s decision to strike comes following allegedly slow progress in establishing new agreements with its management, Philadelphia Orchestra and Kimmel Center Inc. (POKC).

While the musicians’ decision to walk out is not yet official, the vote would enable the strike if the orchestra’s current contract expires on September 10, 2023, and a new collective bargaining agreement is not reached.

Musicians of the orchestra are requesting better pay, improved leave and retirement benefits, pay parity for substitute musicians, who now earn less than full-time members; and hiring for the orchestra’s 15 vacant positions, among other requests, reported the Philadelphia Inquirer.

“The musicians of the Philadelphia Orchestra have declared that enough is enough,” said Ellen Trainer, president of the Philadelphia Musicians’ Union Local 77. “The POKC can no longer refuse to prioritize the musicians that make Philadelphia’s orchestra the best in the world.

“The union has proposed a fair and equitable contract that ensures economic dignity and respect for the Philadelphia Orchestra’s musicians and freelance musicians who help maintain the orchestra’s sound,” Trainer added. “But management has shown that musicians are a cost to be contained, rather than the most important asset of the orchestra and the Kimmel Center.”

 

During the pandemic, PO was forced to cancel over 200 concerts and lost around $26 million in ticket sales and performance fees, according to The New York Times. In 2021, the orchestra merged with the Kimmel Center to streamline operations and create new income sources.

The PO musicians maintain that they each took a pay cut of $52,000 — or $6 million total — during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the orchestra receiving almost $30 million in federal and state funds during that time.

“Our salaries and our retirement benefits have been decimated, while vacancies have long gone unfilled,” said William Polk, PO violinist and member of the union’s negotiating committee. “Authorizing a strike is an important next step to show the orchestra’s management, and our great city, that the Philadelphia Orchestra musicians stand together. We will not allow this miraculous ensemble to be downgraded into something merely ordinary.”

A Philadelphia Orchestra and Kimmel Center Inc. spokesperson Ashley Berke stated that the management is disappointed by the authorization to strike, and wished to “continue to negotiate in good faith towards a fiscally responsible agreement that ensures the musicians’ economic and artistic future.”

Berke stated that the average annual compensation, including all pay levels and media participation payments, is $190,736 —including at least 10 weeks’ paid leave, a health and benefits package, and an 8% pension contribution.

“Our current proposal offers an average salary of $216,580 in two years — a 13% increase (by the end of the new contract) in one of the most affordable big cities in the nation,” she explained, adding that “each member of the Orchestra received additional payments of nearly $8,000 in 2022 and close to $5,500 in 2023 from the Musician Appreciation Fund.”

 

According to union figures, the PO’s current base salary is $144,456. Conversely, the Los Angeles Philharmonic (the highest-paid orchestra in the country) will have a base salary of $195,520 in the 2023/24 concert season.

For the PO musicians’ salaries to reach the average of other orchestras of a similar caliber — $172,753 — their pay would need almost a 19.6% increase. 

Berke added that the PO’s “minimum annual compensation” sits at $152,276. Under POKC’s recent proposal, that figure would become $172,886 by the start of the 2025/26 season.

The musicians’ union and POKC management have met several times since May 2023, including six negotiating sessions this month with little progress, said Stuart W. Davidson, a lawyer for the musicians’ union. The next scheduled negotiating sessions are September 6–8, next month.

 

Recently, the PO also canceled its international and national tours, and other concert projects due to “logistical challenges” and the events being “no longer financially viable.”

In the past, the PO declared bankruptcy in 2011 after the financial crisis, and in 2016, a short strike was held by the musicians on the night of their season-opening gala. Additionally, the orchestra went on strike for 58 days in 1966, and again in 1996 for 64 days.