Negotiations

Comment on Nathan’s comment:

Thank you for your comments and your kind words, Nathan. My use if the term “tactic” wasn’t meant to in any way suggest that how we have conducted negotiations in Dayton has been flawed. As you point out, your job is to represent the musicians and the local to the best of your ability, and that is exactly what you do.

General comments

It’s interesting to see the level of skepticism about strategic planning expressed by our musician and union panelists. To me developing strategy is a very different aspect of managing an orchestra than collective bargaining. Sometimes strategy will have no direct impact on the musicians’ work. Other times it will. But I don’t see that participating in the setting of strategy inherently prevents the musicians from taking any particular position at the bargaining table. If you think it is a good strategy, and it is an issue that impacts matters subject to collective bargaining, you will presumably see an interest in negotiating terms that allow the strategy to succeed. If you think it is a bad strategy, you won’t see an interest in doing so.

In the long run, an orchestra with sound strategy will end up with a bigger pie than an orchestra with bad strategy or no strategy at all. And increasing the size of the pie is something we all want. Obviously there are going to be times when even well conceived strategies fail to achieve expected results, either for external reasons beyond the orchestra’s control or for internal reasons (great strategy but poor execution gets you nowhere, other than with a need for new people who execute better). But that’s no reason to dismiss the need for strategic thinking altogether. To the extent that musicians can have a voice in shaping a strategic direction which results in a more successful organization, they will have a better chance of getting what they want come bargaining time.

One thing we all do seem to agree on is the need for ongoing discussion about organizational direction as opposed to once in a bargaining cycle discussion. I certainly believe this, and yet I would be the first to admit that we don’t have enough of this kind of ongoing discussion in Dayton. It is very tempting to only talk when there are specific problems to addressed.

Final Thoughts

Thank you, Drew and fellow panelists, for the opportunity to participate. I enjoyed reading the variety of opinions expressed on the collective bargaining process and how it can help to set organizational strategic direction. We in the orchestra world certainly face our share of collective challenges. It’s encouraging to see the passion we can bring to a discussion about ways to address these challenges.