ENO strikers appeal to freelancers to stay away
OperaMessage from members of the English National Opera orchestra:
Hi there! Forgive the generic message. The ENO orchestra are kindly asking extras to consider saying no to the proposed extra show for Handmaid’s Tale on 13th Feb. The concern is that the strike on 1st Feb will have less impact if they can just allocate those tickets to another night. Thanks for considering it.
The members won’t do it – they are saying they aren’t available as it’s deliberately trying to undermine the strike and the show is being added too late to escape the notice period required to make them do the show
I have often been booked on day /had to sightread in ENO shows, so it’s highly unlikely they will add rehearsal.
Also they haven’t made the availability enquiries to the regular e&d players – it’s a very cynical move.
I urge everyone to ask your diary service to refer any work enquiry for 13th feb to you and then decline if it is from ENO – we should not facilitate the undermining of our colleagues – that “if you don’t do it someone will“ attitude is, in large part, how our industry got where we are today.
Back when everyone was required to be in the union to work, you would have been required to turn down the offer and join the picket line, or face being barred from the union and not being able to work professionally anywhere again.
Now we have the freedom to make a choice and that is great but comes with a moral responsibility – we should still support our fellow musicians even if only because their redundancy offers include being added to top of e&d and putting many current freelancers out of work.
Is this not playing into management’s hands?
I had been thinking of buying tickets this year – no longer, if there is a threat of disruption.
I have every sympathy with the musicians, but this isn’t the way to address things.
Sorry to hear you won’t be booking tickets there this year.
How would you address things?
This appalling situation isn’t about you and buying tickets.
Think about the musicians and their living and reflect on why they are being brave and needing to go on strike.
May I respectfully suggest you re-read the international coverage on this potentially disastrous debacle?
So, salaried musicians ask freelancers to turn down work – reminds me a bit of the BBC strike in the earliest 1980s
Yes, you’re correct. And the freelancers are evidently capable of understanding, as you apparently are not, that ENO orchestra members being made redundant would make life worse for existing freelancers as well.
The difficulty here is just a further iteration of the perpetual one. If every worker is a free agent with no responsibility to other workers, you have (depending on p.o.v.) the glory of the free market or what Hobbes called “the war of all against all.”
The idea of labour power through collective bargaining requires solidarity with those who are exercising that power in the form of a strike. That power may be exercised wisely or unwisely, and in the latter case workers should criticise or replace their chosen leaders. But if the power is not respected by other workers, it doesn’t exist at all.
The point is that a non-unionised worker is neither enfranchised to select nor subject to the authority of the union’s “chosen leaders”, having instead exercised his/her right to “criticise or replace” them by not joining the union. A union has every right to appeal to non-unionised workers not to undermine industrial action; non-unionised workers have every right to cross a picket line. Whilst there is some validity in the argument that unionised workers, in having opted actively to join the union and to avail themselves of its protection, may owe a moral duty to support the union’s actions where these are backed by a democratic mandate, it is untenable to advance the same argument in respect of non-unionised workers.
“Closed shop” practices have been illegal in the UK for some decades, and rightly so. Given the political nature of unions, it would be oppressive for them to have the power to act as a gatekeeper or regulator for a profession, inasmuch as it creates an unacceptable risk of a “tyranny of the majority” (assuming that the democratic structure of said union is functioning effectively). Banning dissent and contrarian opinions/approaches in a profession, as well as being oppressive to individual liberty, would stifle innovation and fair competition.
Ultimately, if unions want solidarity, they have to win the argument and convince the rest of the workforce that it is in their interests to co-operate (or that they should consider co-operating to support a compelling matter of principle).
The ENO management has earlier today said that the mooted additional “Handmaid’s Tale” on the evening of Tuesday 13th January is no longer going ahead.
Solidarity with all the ENO strikers ✊