Musicians of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic Players’ Association walked out last night after theor pay demand was rejected.
They’re still talking, though.
Fort Wayne is not to be confused with the Fort Worth Symphony – pictured here during their last strike in 2016.
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Ft. Wayne (Indiana), Ft. Worth (Texas) – separated by some hundreds of miles.
No, Norman. We Yanks would not confuse Fort Wayne with Fort Worth!
Ft. Wayne? What leverage do the players have? It’s not like they are playing for the East Moravian Orchestra where there’s more demand n support for their services. Take the money n play, that’s my free advice.
40 years ago I served as Principal Viola in the Springfield (MA) Symphony Orchestra. When I look at the salaries being offered by comparable regional orchestras today, I am shocked and saddened; the musicians are barely making more than I was in the early 1980s. Springfield itself has been without a contract for years, the musicians heroically putting on their own concerts as the board is clearly content to let the institution wither away and die.
When I finished school, I couldn’t even consider a part-time orchestra like Fort Wayne because of my student loan debt demands. I didn’t know that having such a job could lead to enough other work, or that I could have lived in Chicago, but it certainly wasn’t guaranteed.
Three whole sentences, and a picture of a DIFFERENT strike. What a pathetic article. The author of this should be FIRED. Oh look, my comment is longer than the ENTIRE ARTICLE!!! MORON.
Correction, it’s not even a picture of a strike. When Ft. Worth went on strike they had “on strike” signs. This photo was of a picketing, but it is not a photo of a picket line.
May Fort Wayne get a fair contract soon.
I’m surprised if you don’t get banned from the site for daring to make such criticism.
That’s an extraordinarily misleading headline, Norman. Provide some context please, and not just clickbait.
It should be noted that the “46% pay raise” that’s being thrown around is misleading. The musicians took a large cut during COVID, and nothing has yet been restored. The musicians are asking for their pre COVID salaries to be restored with a small cost of living increase, which would put their salaries at 32k, which is still extremely modest. The Fort Wayne philharmonic had a yearly budget of around 5 to 6 million, and is sitting on a 30 million dollar endowment. They have the money to pay musicians a living wage and claiming otherwise is a blatant lie.
Misleading and disengenous headline. Their pay had previously been slashed. Expect better from a music blog.
Musicians live in a constant state of euphoria, don’t we know that? If Marie Antoinette (who was a good and remains a much maligned person) “let them eat cake, musicians are left to eat cadenzas.
Their current salary is not indicated but I’m guessing that it’s shockingly low for a professional orchestra. It’s probably below poverty level so 46% is not an outrageous number, especially paid over several years.
Journalist of slippedisc.com makes a poor attempt at reporting on an orchestra and theor pay negotiations.
He’s still writing, though.
Slippedisc is not to be confused with a herniated disc – a condition which I now have after falling to the floor in shock from reading this “article.”