Allegro
Pre-college music faculty at the Manhattan School of Music are fighting for a fair contract
Volume 124, No. 9October, 2024
Manhattan School of Music’s Precollege Division is one of the top preparatory music programs in the country. Its classical and jazz programs educate some of the most promising young musicians of their generation, and faculty include many of the New York area’s most brilliant musicians, including many Local 802 members.
Precollege faculty at the Manhattan School of Music are represented by ARTS-MSM, a local of New York State United Teachers, which is the result of a heroic and hard-fought battle for union representation in 2008 and 2009 that certified union protections for musicians teaching in the program and substantially improved the conditions of their employment.
But at the end of this summer, the MSM precollege contract expired, and teachers are now currently working without a new contract as administration continues to drag its feet in negotiations.
The stakes of these contract negations could not be higher.
Compensation rates for MSM precollege faculty have fallen so far behind industry standards that the minimum pay rate for faculty is currently less than half of that in peer programs like Mannes Prep and the Juilliard Music Advancement Program.
While the administration has put forward proposed wage increases of just $1 per hour on an annual basis in a new five-year agreement, numerous faculty members are already quitting or considering quitting the program to focus their work at other institutions where they are paid fairly.
According to publicly available tax records we believe that MSM is not in financial distress and that the precollege program is particularly profitable. The refusal to pay faculty industry standard wages isn’t a question of ability, it’s a question of choice. MSM is paying the faculty of its most profitable program drastically substandard wages. This is exploitation!
While the administration has increased enrollment in the precollege program and proposed increases in class sizes, they stubbornly refuse to compensate teachers fairly. Currently, less than 25 percent of tuition revenue goes to teacher salaries. (Where is the rest of the money going?)
The president of MSM lives in a two-story penthouse in the sky provided by the school and enjoys a compensation package of $700,000 per year. Meanwhile, faculty members are making substandard wages that have fallen far behind both the cost of living and the rates at peer institutions, while they also have no access to basic benefits like health insurance (much less rent-free penthouses!).
Fundamentally, MSM precollege’s reputation exists because of its excellent faculty. To the extent that the school doesn’t meet industry standards with regard to compensation and working conditions, the program will be increasingly less capable of retaining and attracting the top-tier faculty that keeps the school among the top preparatory programs in the country. Frankly, our opinion is that the administration is greedy. We feel that these misplaced priorities don’t only harm current faculty but also present an existential threat to the reputation and continuation of the program.
Since the faculty’s contract expired at the end of the summer, MSM precollege faculty have been working anyway, doing our best to provide an exceptional musical education to our students amidst an unnecessary atmosphere of uncertainty and dread. We feel that the MSM administration has dragged its feet throughout contract negotiations, not even responding to the union’s wage proposal until the final bargaining session of the summer, just before classes began. In that session, they presented what we see as an absurd proposal that would “reward” veteran teachers who have dedicated 30 years or more to teaching in the program with a “seniority” pay rate that would equate to them making less than what a brand-new teacher at Mannes Prep or the Juilliard Music Advancement Program would make on their very first day of teaching. These proposals are a slap in the face to MSM precollege’s most dedicated faculty and clearly illustrate that the administration’s priorities are completely out of whack, in our opinion.
Since the contract has expired, there has been a tremendous outpouring of support for MSM precollege faculty in our fight for a fair contract. Over 1,500 people have signed a petition calling for a fair contract, students and faculty have participated in solidarity actions on campus, and every Saturday students across the campus sport buttons in support of the faculty union.
Local 802, the musicians of the Metropolitan Opera, the musicians of DCINY, Music Workers Alliance, and other groups have amplified the faculty’s efforts to pressure the administration to respect its faculty and sign a fair contract.
The field of music can seem like a very small world, and in that context, solidarity can be especially powerful. As musicians, we are strongest when we all stand together. Whether on stage or in the classroom, music simply doesn’t happen without us. In this moment, the faculty of MSM precollege need the support of all musicians as we stand up to demand respect for our craft and for the fundamental principle that musicians should make a decent wage for our work. When we all have each other’s back, we can create a better world not just for ourselves, but for our students and for future generations of musicians.
Thank you for your support!
In solidarity,
ARTS-MSM
Adam Kent, President
David Friend, Interim Co-Vice President
Adrienne Kim, Interim Co-Vice President
Elena Belli, Treasurer
Karen Rostron, Secretary