The renegotiated contract will save the orchestra $700,000 this season; base pay shrinks more than 19%.
By Steven Brown
sbrown@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Saturday, Sep. 05, 2009
For the second time in two years, the Charlotte Symphony’s musicians have taken a pay cut meant to help fight the orchestra’s financial crisis.
The players will give up more than 19 percent of this year’s pay in a renegotiated contract they ratified Thursday and the orchestra’s board approved Friday. They sacrifice five weeks of work this season and accept a cut in weekly pay.
The revised contract will save the orchestra about $700,000 this season, said Jonathan Martin, orchestra executive director.
“The musicians have again agreed to be a partner in restoring the financial integrity of the symphony,” Martin said Friday.
When the orchestra goes back to work next week after its summer hiatus, the players’ base pay will be $975 a week rather than $1,050. Through June, they’ll work 33 weeks rather than 38.
In agreeing to the cut, the players were being “very realistic,” said violinist Elizabeth Pistolesi, chair of the players’ negotiating committee. “It’s in everybody’s best interest to survive as an organization.”
No concerts have to be canceled, Martin said. The cut in weeks mainly takes up slack left after Opera Carolina canceled one production and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools cut concerts for fourth- and fifth-graders.
The orchestra has been fighting deficits since 2002. It has already cut staff jobs and trimmed programming.
The savings from the revised contract are part of a turnaround plan that includes broadening the orchestra’s programming and audience, cultivating new donors, making further cost savings and expanding its endowment.
By taking the pay cut, the players help give the orchestra time to do all that, Pistolesi said.
“We don’t want to keep going from one crisis to the next,” she said.
In May, the Arts & Science announced a cut of at least $1 million to the orchestra, and it ordered the group to present the turnaround plan by this month. The orchestra gave the proposal to the ASC’s leaders Wednesday. On Sept. 15, the ASC’s board will decide how much to give the orchestra. The maximum will be $900,000.
After the ASC announced its cut in May, the orchestra launched an emergency fundraising campaign seeking $1.77million. The orchestra’s board recently promised $510,000, and an anonymous donor pledged $500,000 if the orchestra matches it by Dec. 31.
The savings from the new contract don’t affect the campaign, Martin said. The orchestra counted on the savings when it calculated the goal, which ties in with the $7.6 million budget the orchestra has projected for this season.
The revised contract replaces an agreement reached in 2007. Then, too, the players accepted a cut in their weeks of work. They agreed to cuts during previous crises, too, Pistolesi noted, but the latest one is “deeper than any we’ve done.”
The musicians’ base pay for this season shrinks more than 19 percent to $32,175 from $39,900. Many players earn more because of years of service or other factors.
The new contract runs through the summer of 2013. During that time, it gradually increases the weekly salary and weeks of work, reaching $1,050.50 a week for 37 weeks in 2012-13.
With the contract settled, Martin said, the orchestra’s next task is to raise $500,000 to match the anonymous donation. In the week and a half since the announcement, about $100,000 has come in. The gifts include “significant surprises” of $5,000 to $10,000 from first-time donors.
Martin said: “That’s a heck of an affirmation.”
