Arts Alive San Antonio

By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor

By now, it’s public knowledge that the San Antonio Symphony is going through another financial crisis that stopped the music-making, and placed the non-profit’s board and its musicians on opposite sides of a dispute over contracts and the future of the orchestra.

Citing lack of funds, the Symphony Society, the nonprofit board that governs the symphony, wants to reduce the size of the orchestra from 72 to 42 musicians, shorten the season and cut the base pay of full-time musicians from about $35,000 to $24,000. The thirty musicians who would lose their jobs would have a chance to be hired for specific occasions, as needed. Needless to say, the offer is unacceptable to musicians who have accused the board of not undertaking wider-based fundraising that would include the players’ help.

Unfortunately, the negotiations have stalled after the board presented the musicians with its final offer. 

According to the latest news, the union representing the musicians – Local 23, American Federation of Musicians – has filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the Symphony Society of San Antonio. Nine violations of the National Labor Relations Act are listed, including “engaging in bad faith” negotiations; setting an artificial and arbitrary limit on the funds available for bargaining, unilaterally imposing deep cuts, and others.

The musicians have been on strike for a number of weeks now and the opening concerts of the season have been “postponed.”

“The remedy could be that the NLRB orders the Symphony to rescind the imposed conditions, remedy the allegations made in this charge, and to bargain in good faith with the union since the strike was called by unfair labor practices,” said David Van Os, a lawyer for the Musicians of the San Antonio Symphony or MOSAS.

In the meantime, the musicians have received support from colleagues across the US, who collectively donated $137,190, a number significantly higher than $90,000, which is what the board & management projected for corporate donations during the 2021-22 season.

Musicians’ representative, Mary Ellen Goree, says she and her colleagues are ready to resume talks if the management changes its attitude.

“I don’t think that any reasonable person would expect the musicians to come back to the bargaining table with this last and final offer still imposed on us,” she noted. “It essentially slams the door on any kind of bargaining and moving forward.”

She also believes that there’s more money in the community than the board wants everyone to believe.

“It’s manifestly evident that there’s plenty of money in San Antonio and the metropolitan area,” said Goree. “As evidence I point out to the news article that came out a week or so ago about the city discussing a $17M gift to the Spurs. There was another article about the city looking at a bond issue to secure $62M to renovate the Sunken Garden; Trinity University has received major gifts, the McNay has received a major gift. I think it’s incumbent on our board and management to expand the pool of people that they are approaching. It’s a failure if they have not successfully made a case to a larger number of people and leaders of corporations and foundations in our community. The San Antonio Symphony is a public good that benefits everyone.”

If you want to show support for the musicians, you can take part in a rally, scheduled for this Friday, Oct. 29, from 6:30 – 8 p.m. It will be held at Veterans Memorial Plaza, right across the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts. The speakers include Ray Hair, president of the American Federation of Musicians; Rick Levy, head of Texas AFL/CIO; city council members, and Goree who is the chair of MOSAS. “…Other major orchestras in Texas – Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth – are opening their seasons with the musicians’ pay fully restored to pre-pandemic levels. We envy their cities’ and managements’ will to return them to the stage to perform the music we and our audiences love,” Goree wrote in a statement.