Cleveland pressures faculty not to join union
OrchestrasThe Cleveland Institute of Music is doing all it can to stop unhappy staffers from joining a union. It’s getting heated out there.
First up is board member Bonnie Cook:
Next, here’s a round-robin letter from Robert Vernon (pictured), retired principal violist of the Cleveland Orchestra (1976 to 2016) and CIM Professor of Viola for almost 50 years
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
I am writing to you to provide my perspective on the potential unionization of the Faculty at CIM. Having been an AFM member for more than fifty years and a member of CIM’s faculty for nearly as long, I hope that what follows will be helpful as you consider this important matter.
My long-held position has been that unions have a role to play in representing members of orchestras, largely because of the evolution of symphony orchestras over the past several decades. As we all know, the management of an orchestra encompasses complex human resource, finance, and artistic considerations, and the potential for section players especially to be disadvantaged has been mitigated successfully by the Cleveland AFM for some time. The pressures on orchestras to generate revenue from concerts, recordings, and touring are substantial enough that a functional union helps to manage players’ position when contracts are being negotiated.
Nevertheless, CIM is, in my view, a very different organization from the Cleveland Orchestra, with very different operational, financial, and artistic realities and pressures. Throughout its now more than 100 year history, we have been able to navigate those realities without resorting to bringing in a third party negotiator for our compensation.
I believe that this is appropriate, and even essential, in order for CIM to thrive, for the following reasons:
• AFM’s leadership and negotiators have no experience in negotiating salaries and compensation for college or university faculties. Whereas in the world of professional orchestras a strong union leadership has ready access to comparable contract information from other similar orchestra negotiations, this experience simply will not exist in the context of CIM’s contract negotiations. AFM will have to “figure things out” as it goes along, and this is likely not in our best interest.
• Recognizing that there have been significant differences of opinion on certain aspects of CIM’s aspirations and leadership, AFM will only represent you for compensation contracts. My understanding is that they will have no other function, and so, it will likely not be effective in helping to bridge those non-compensation disagreements.
• I continue to believe that a strong Faculty Senate leadership, along with a strong Dean’s Council, is the best path forward for our faculty and administrators. We know CIM, and AFM most certainly does not. We need maximum flexibility, and in many cases we benefit from receiving customized compensation packages. This mode of longstanding engagement will be a thing of the past if AFM takes charge of these negotiations.
In summary, I do not believe that unionizing will provide the solutions some on the Faculty currently seek. I believe that honest, direct dealings will always be the better route.
Warmly,
Bob
Yet he’s a member of AFM whatever that is?
Until his retirement he was a member of the Cleveland Orchestra and its principal viola.
you don’t know what the AFM is?
f you do not know what the AFM is hou do not have my respect. Carole Paul Toronto
American Federation of Musicians of United States and Canada, is what he is referring to. It’s not clear from this post what ‘the union’ or ‘a union’ is. I’ve never heard of AFM representing faculty anywhere.
If management is telling you you don’t need a union, then you likely need one more than ever.
This is a highly reasoned and intelligent letter from one of the most respected and successful musicians on both the orchestral and educational fronts. Bob makes a strong case for not having the AFM (American Federation of Musicians) represent faculty at CIM. Board member Bonnie Cook concurs.
Oh dear Bonnie, don’t you understand? Paul Hogle is incapable of growth. There is no such thing as shared governance under his rule. It’s a dictatorship, and you’re just a brain-washed minion doing his bidding. We’re at this point because we’ve run out of options. It’s a battle between those who actually care about CIM and one who only cares about himself and his legacy, oops I mean wallet.
If it were 200 years ago, Paul Hogle would be spending thousands to tell us why slavery should be legal. Down with this despicable charlatan who hides behind his fairy tale religion.
It’s been decades since I worked at CIM, and although I can’t pretend to know all the ins and outs of the situation there, I do know that if Bob Vernon says it, it’s worth hearing. The respect he has (deservedly) earned in the Cleveland musical community is second to none.
Digging themselves a deeper hole. CIM brass doesn’t value or respect its staff – that’s obvious from the vote of no confidence, from esteemed professors being forced out, from the pay cut to regular educators while the president and vice president collect millions over the same time period – I could go on. The last thing staff at CIM should be doing is foregoing their collective bargaining power; Unionize, and save CIM from itself if you can.
1. It is not staffers who are unionizing, it is the Faculty.
2. These faculty union leaders are, mostly, part-time teachers with full-time positions in, you guessed it, The Cleveland Orchestra (or, in some cases, they are attached to members of the Cleveland Orchestra).
3. If an orchestra goes on strike, who suffers? Audiences do not get to attend concerts. Maybe an institutional reputation hit, and orchestra members suffer economically, but it’s of their own choice.
4. If a university faculty goes on strike, who suffers most? Students do: they lose valuable time in their expensive education process, and even worse, their ability to receive degrees can be threatened. But, at CIM it will also be the full-time and non Cleveland Orchestra part-time faculty who will suffer. Those part-timers who have full-time, highly compensated gigs down the street? Well, they will have more time for other side hustles, knowing that their fisc remains intact.
5. Why is this happening to CIM? It’s because a limited number of Cleveland Orchestra faculty have not been able to accept the fact that in the ten years since CIM’s accreditation crisis, the school’s faculty must live within commonly accepted standards for outcomes and assessments. They simply find it beneath them.
6. So, their real mission in unionizing is to have this be the straw that breaks the board’s back, leading to the President’s ouster, leading ultimately to the Cleveland Orchestra faculty running the show. It really is that simple.
7. Before these Cleveland Orchestra members began rioting, which is what it is, they were, in many cases, students at CIM, where they learned their instruments from the men and women who made the Cleveland Orchestra’s reputation. This is a sad case of the children eating the mother.
8. This is shameful, it’s unethical, and it’s beneath the dignity of the Cleveland Institute of Music.
Hi Susan! How’s the wrecking ball these days?
Cleveland has serious management issues. That’s why I took my talents to LA.
When are they having the election?
From all the horror stories I keep reading about this place, they clearly DO need a union, but joining the AFM doesn’t seem to make sense either. Isn’t there some sort of broad-reaching college/university employees’ union in Ohio?