UPDATE: Looks like the clock has ticked to 11:59 p.m. tonight. Read the latest here.
Remember the Doomsday Clock? It was established by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago in 1947. It reflects the proximity of the world to nuclear annihilation – midnight – by the use of an analog clock, with the minute hand moving forward or backward in response to international nuclear tensions. The clock has hovered between 11:43 p.m. and 11:58 p.m. since its inception.
As I was reading the Detroit Free Press article today about last-ditch negotiations between the musicians and management of the Detroit Symphony, the phrase “eleventh hour” popped into my head, followed by the image of the Doomsday Clock. There has been little news out of Detroit for most of the month of September, following a massive PR push by the musicians at the end of August into the beginning of September. I would reckon that the Detroit Doomsday Clock is hovering right now around 11:45, and that it will approach closest to midnight as the first concert of the season (on October 8th) comes nigh.
This situation is so senseless that it makes me want to scream. The slash-and-burn proposals of the DSO management really leave the musicians with little place to go other than a work action, especially since they are clearly cognizant of the need for emergency action on their part. Why else would they have proposed massive short-term salary and benefit cuts? Even with the raises at the end of the contract, they would end up with a net 8% pay cut. These are major concessions, but because of their insistence that some of the concessions be reinstated after three years, management refused their offer, and is now proposing not only to abolish the right of tenure and the imposition of a host of new job responsibilities (which are currently voluntary and subject to additional payments to musicians) at the same time as a 29% pay cut. Clearly, the management of the DSO has been slow to recognize or admit its poor handling of nearly every aspect of running the DSO, and now that they are in a serious bind, it is the musicians who must pay.
What is saddest of all in this situation is that if there is either a lockout or strike, the institution will suffer grievous injury, especially in terms of its ability to fund raise. Members of the DSO are some of the most highly accomplished musicians in the country and the world, and they will start looking for more secure and financially rewarding places to work.