Comment by pSYoniK | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pSYoniK | Hacker News Reader

I fully agree with drewcoo's comment.

I cannot believe the discussions occurring here surrounding professional musicians, people who have trained for years to hone their skills. I cannot believe that the attitude towards a union -"wouldn't they all be better now since they'd still be employed"? These are statements made by someone who never had to face the reality of the fact that sometimes a job offers so little money that you are BETTER off not working. The reality in many poor countries is that you could work for 5-10$ a day, but people choose not to work jobs but rather to engage in subsistence farming as that offers them at least food to survive, whereas the 5-10$ a day wouldn't. I cannot believe the narrow mindedness of such statements...

I found it offensive that I used to make more than someone playing in a symphony as someone working in retail. I found it offensive that I made more money in a week than they did in a month and all I did was peddle more garbage for people to buy to make themselves feel better about their empty pointless and gluttonous lives...

I feel sad that at this point this is where art is headed. Its shocking to see that art is potentially returning to the same dynamic that we saw in the Middle Ages - where some wealthy benefactor is needed to allow artists to continue their activity. Each time something like this happens we lose big chunks of what and who we are as a species. We're normalizing the death of art, of imagination and of beauty and assume that everything needs to have a monetary value attached to it, that everything needs to yield ROI. It's repulsive...

I don’t see this at all. They didn’t make less than you because of some moral failing by society at large. They made less because there is such a glut of artists that the bottom pay rate is literally less than zero, hence “do it for the exposure”. There is more art created every day today than ever before. The old school art forms you think are so crucial just aren’t.

Nothing shows this like walking in Austin and seeing homeless musicians on every corner just as good as the live band you paid to go see.

Exactly this. All of the holier than thou disgust at economics and ROI just means OP doesn’t understand those are the consequences of demand.

The reality is that the vast majority of people would rather entertain themselves shopping in retail than going to a symphony. Pass judgement all you like, but it won’t change the reality that people simply don’t value “the arts” as much as you do (or at least, the specific arts that you do).

Poor symphony pay is not because of labor oversupply. It’s due to a lack of revenue. Many rely highly on grants and donations to make payroll, with ticket sales only being a small fraction of their income. The budget is determined by how many wealthy donors send in money.

That feels like a semantic distraction to me. Is it too much supply, or not enough demand? I think they both mean the same thing.

It’s more complicated than people buying fungible quantities of widgets. A donors choice to donate is not really linked to supply of labor. Wages are more greatly linked to the supply of rich philanthropists in the local area, than the supply of labor. One orchestra can supply an infinite number of philanthropists. It’s not a consumable.

What would be your preferred alternative?

Should the symphony pay them all six-figure salaries until it becomes insolvent, and then closes anyway?

I'm not sure what you want to happen here.

It seems like the people of San Antonio are not interested in paying for a symphony. That's their prerogative. Many cities don't have a symphony. There's a great many goods and services that take years of skill to master that I don't pay for because I don't want them.

It seems to me like they are expressing shock that cities the size of San Antonio aren't willing to pay enough or for whatever reasons don't raise enough for a symphony. There's not really an alternative, the suggestions of professional symphony players working for almost nothing or compromising their performances by not practicing are rather offensive.

From a union of musicians perspective, I think they made the right choice. No symphony for San Antonio, no reason to return to the table. Maybe other cities will be a little more careful than they would have been with raising and using funds.

I didn't get the impression from the article the city administers the symphony or that the budget for the musicians comes out of public funds.

They aren't expressing shock at the city, they're expressing shock at one or two comments on here that they deem morally disgusting. It's totally unnecessary (we can read) but pretty standard.

It seems to me like you are inventing ridiculous interpretations. A city of a million can do whatever it likes with private and public fund raising to support it's art and sport choices. San Antonio wanted a professional symphony for 1/4 the rate by impoverishing the participants. They didn't come back to the table because they should find another job or a different city.

The rebuke of the performers for not negotiating is right in the OP. It's not the performers fault that there's no workable solution for the cities level of interest in a symphony. If the symphony goes down in quality there will be even less money.

I don't know why your first sentence is necessary.

As I said, the San Antonio Symphony does not appear to be a public organization. Of course I could be wrong, I just read the article. Wikipedia appears to confirm my interpretation. Though even if it were a city can't do "whatever it wants" they still have budgets and stuff. But it isn't so your point is moot.

I never said it was the performers fault. No idea what you're responding to.

A city has a government, a city is also the collection of people, organizations, etc that are interested in the success of the city.

The point being argued was that someone is disappointed by comments in these threads and somehow their upset is inappropriate. Looking at the comments many of them back this management being disappointed that performers and their union destroyed this public good by not negotiating when offered lower compensation.

The city as a whole is saying it can't afford a professional symphony and that's fine. That isn't the performers fault and they were protected from a downward spiral by having a union that didn't let them go into poverty either working for free to their no longer compensated standards or losing more and more funding through poorer quality while they worked other jobs.

No one would accept the argument that IT workers are in the wrong if they refuse ever increasing pay cuts to stay in an environment that is no longer able to support them.

I read all the comments that were posted prior to the morally outraged top-level comments before I replied. There are very few (maybe 1-2) blaming the musicians, expressing anti-union sentiments, or anything like that. And of course, the first few comments are rarely representative of the general sentiment of a discussion, which is why I said the morally outraged comment expressing disgust was not necessary. I also agree musicians should not have to work for $17,000 a year, or $34,000 a year.

The morally disgusted comments at the tenor of the discussion were posted 8 and 9 hours ago, respectively. The sole comment posted prior to that, as far as I can tell, with anti-union sentiment was

"If the musicians weren't unionized, wouldn't they all be better off right now since they'd still be employed?"

which has a bunch of pushback in the replies immediately. So again, the point that the moral outrage at the HN crowd and their anti-union sentiment trying to force the musicians into poverty seems unnecessary.

"many of them back this management being disappointed that performers and their union destroyed this public good by not negotiating when offered lower compensation"

I don't see many. Feel free to share (posted before the morally outraged comments, of course).

Anyway, I'm gonna bow out of this discussion now as it's not that important. HN is what it is.

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