Allegro
PRE-COLLEGE MUSIC FACULTY AT MSM ON THE CUSP OF VICTORY
Guest Commentary
Volume 125, No. 4April, 2025
This is a guest commentary provided by the ARTS-MSM union.
After nine months of negotiating, seven months working on an expired seven-year-old contract, and a historic strike that was the first in the 100-year history of the Manhattan School of Music, the precollege faculty are close to concluding a memorandum of agreement with the administration.
The progress embodied in this agreement is remarkable. Teachers’ organizing, engaging, and standing together to prove that the school cannot function without our labor has resulted in unprecedented contract wins, including a 70 percent increase in the faculty wage floor across the five years of the contract, the establishment of seniority differentials, guaranteed minimum rates for conductors and directors of large ensembles and for teachers whose students are charged a surcharge, and a total roll-back of the administration’s egregious demands to dramatically increase class sizes.
After a few outstanding details are finalized, a ratification vote by our members will follow. (Precollege faculty are represented by ARTS-MSM, a local of New York State United Teachers.)
From the beginning, and throughout this fight, teachers have been clear about our priorities: Manhattan School of Music must pay wages that reflect industry standards, and students’ quality of education must be protected. While these are common sense priorities and the furthest thing from “radical demands,” the administration unfortunately chose to engage in a scorched-earth campaign, spending untold mountains of money on high-priced, union-busting lawyers in an attempt to force faculty to accept a contract that wouldn’t only be disastrous for teachers, but for our students and the precollege program as well.
After an entire semester of negotiating with a recalcitrant administration and following no significant movement at the bargaining table after a 98 percent vote in favor of strike authorization, faculty were left with no choice but to go on strike early in the spring semester. The strike kicked off with an epic ten-hour picket line on a frigid Saturday morning and was joined by teachers, students, parents, alumni, local elected officials, and a huge coalition of labor supporters including members of Local 802, AGMA, NYSUT, UFT, PSC-CUNY, UUP, UAW-7902,and WGA-East, with support from the Central Labor Council. The strike action and the unity of our faculty made plain that Manhattan School of Music simply can’t function without its teachers, and the school was forced to close its doors and suspend business as usual.
From the outset, we have demanded a contract that respects teachers, protects students, and ensures the viability of a high-quality precollege program. Paying teachers half as much as peer institutions and remaining one of the top preparatory programs in the country are not compatible realities; neither is exploding the class sizes of vital courses in theory and sight-singing and maintaining top quality music instruction for students. ARTS-MSM drew a line in the sand on these fundamental principles, and through the persistence of our members we have attained the possibility of a contract that is good for teachers, good for students, and essential to the long-term health of the MSM precollege program.
The past several months have been difficult, but we emerge from this fight with a larger union membership, a more engaged and unified faculty, and a new generation of ARTS-MSM leaders who have taken up the mantle and proven themselves as incredibly effective organizers. So many of our faculty have invested their time and skill — without compensation — to strengthen our union, and these efforts have paid off. We have done an incredible amount of engagement work among students, parents, alumni and the broader MSM community to build a community of support, and have also integrated with our labor siblings as never before to leverage the power of solidarity. Local 802 has been an invaluable partner throughout this fight, and we are deeply appreciative of these efforts, as well as the active support of AGMA. We have proven that when musicians stand together, we win!
We are exhausted even as we fight on to conclude this agreement, but we are also deeply thankful. To the community of support that has sustained us through this righteous battle — THANK YOU! We fought, we are winning, and we are stronger than we have ever been! Onwards!
HIGHLIGHT: Watch Local 802 President Bob Suttmann’s powerful speech at one of our rallies, where he proudly shared that he is an alumnus of the school, but that the administration’s behavior during the strike was shameful. (In a previous statement, Suttmann also affirmed that “Local 802 supports these hard-working teachers. Many Local 802 members teach in this program, contributing their invaluable experience as performing artists to the education of young musicians. We know that the future of our profession lies in the development of new talent, and that pedagogical excellence is the key to nurturing tomorrow’s musicians and audiences for musical performances.”)
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
PREVIOUS ARTICLES IN THIS SERIES:
PRE-COLLEGE MUSIC FACULTY AT MSM RAMP UP THEIR CAMPAIGN FOR A FAIR CONTRACT
PRE-COLLEGE MUSIC FACULTY AT MSM ANNOUNCE STRIKE FOR FAIR CONTRACT
Pre-college music faculty at the Manhattan School of Music are still fighting for a fair contract
Pre-college music faculty at the Manhattan School of Music are fighting for a fair contract