S.F. Symphony-Union Agreement Awaits Ratification

Janos Gereben on April 1, 2013
Strike Over

The increasingly bitter 18-day-old strike by musicians of the San Francisco Symphony came to a sudden and welcome end Easter Sunday afternoon with the announcement of a tentative contract agreement.

Negotiators for the SFS management and the Musicians Union of San Francisco, Local No. 6, of the American Federation of Musicians, spent the weekend in long, intensive talks, with the participation of federal mediators, before submitting the agreement for ratification to the Symphony’s Board of Governors and the orchestra's 103 members.

Expectation of approval is so high that SFS announced resumption of concerts starting tomorrow. The announcement said "SFS musicians will return to the stage of Davies Symphony Hall on Tuesday April 2 in the first of a week-long series of free concerts for San Francisco’s elementary school children." All previously announced concerts "will go on as scheduled," according to the statement.

No announcement came from the union last evening. The musicans' web site remained unchanged, still showing appeals to Board President Sakurako Fisher to reverse "many discouraging setbacks for the musicians," and letters of support from other orchestras, including call from the Detroit Symphony to stand up to the "agenda ... to strip the dignity away from those of us who have chosen to share our art."

Close to midnight, upon request for comment from SFCV, Dave Gaudry, speaking on behalf of the Players' Committee, sent this message:

The musicians are happy to have the chance to resume our careers as members of an elite core of the top music makers in the world.

We appreciate the movement made in bargaining by our board and management that allowed for an understanding to get the SFS back on track.

Despite all this, serious disagreements remain about the financial condition of our institution, and these questions are echoed by our fellow musicians in peer orchestras around the country of their own organizations.

It is our hope that the term of this contract will allow for the parties to reach a clearer understanding of the financial realities of the organization and of the industry. We look forward to a collaborative approach going forward to solve our mutual problems.

SFS Strike end

As is usual in collective labor contract negotiations, no details of the agreement will be released until the new contract is accepted, but some of the issues and the nature of the conflict are known because of claims and statements by the two sides during the past two weeks.

The negotiated length of the new contract will be 26 months, rather than originally planned 36 months or a subsequent SFS offer of 24 months.

In terms of pay, the musicians' original demand was to meet or exceed the compensation of the country's highest paid orchestra members in Chicago and Los Angeles. That's about $4,500 over the San Francisco musicians’ annual base salary of $141,700, which rises to an average of $165,000 with extra fees for recordings and overtime, among other extras.

The latest known SFS offer was in the range of discrepancy, so an additional pay increase, such as 4% - instead of the previously offered 2% and then 3% - might have taken care of that issue.

There has been no serious conflict reported about SFS continuing with the current 10 weeks of paid vacation and rules for paid sick leave.

Debate over unspecified work rule changes, variations in the until now premium-free health insurance, and the amount and rules for the $74,000 annual pension upon retirement were at the crux of the conflict, unresolved until Sunday.

The announcement about the school concerts, which begin tomorrow, said: "The entire week of concerts for 1st and 2nd grade students will offer performances for more than 10,000 of San Francisco’s public elementary school children and their teachers as part of the Symphony’s Adventures in Music education program.