OBC Strike Cancels 5 Concerts as Musicians Demand a 35-Hour Week
The OBC strike at L'Auditori has cancelled 5 concerts, including two Mahler nights this weekend. What the musicians want and how the dispute began.
Musicians of the OBC (Barcelona’s symphony orchestra) are still on strike, and the stoppage has now cancelled two concerts at L’Auditori, the city’s main concert hall, in a single weekend. The Friday performance was called off with the audience already seated, and the Saturday evening concert, Mahler’s Second Symphony, was also dropped, according to the Catalan public broadcaster 3Cat.
The orchestra wants L’Auditori’s management to apply the 35-hour working week set for the public administration. Counting the Madrid dates lost earlier this month, 5 concerts have now been cancelled, a strike with no precedent in the OBC’s history.
A concert stopped with the audience in their seats
Friday’s program was Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection,” conducted by Ludovic Morlot, with the Orfeó Català choir and soloists Christiane Karg and Helena Rasker. The hall was full, and the singers of the Orfeó were already on stage when the concert was called off. The strike statement was read out, and everyone left the stage while members of the audience whistled.
3Cat reports that cancelling two concerts in a row in the same weekend has never happened before at L’Auditori. Some Orfeó singers backed the musicians in public afterward, among them soprano Maria Vives, who posted her support on Instagram.
What the musicians are asking for
The main demand is the 35-hour week. The orchestra says an agreement on those hours has been in force since early this year, yet L’Auditori’s management has not put it into practice and refuses to honor its staff’s labor rights.
The musicians also want to play 2 concerts a week as the standard, keeping 3 for exceptional cases. They argue that with the current number of players, three concerts a week as a rule harms both their health and the quality of the performances.
In a statement on its Instagram account, the orchestra said the strike has the backing of all L’Auditori workers, because the 35-hour week is not applied to the rest of the staff either.
How the talks broke down
Negotiations with L’Auditori’s managers began in February and collapsed in the first week of November. The musicians describe the situation as a deadlock after months of talks and question whether the people now running L’Auditori are fit to keep managing the institution.
The works committee (the staff’s elected representatives) also points to built-up discontent for other reasons. It accuses management of taking decisions on its own, of leaving professionals out of choices that directly shape their work, and of paying little attention to how a symphony orchestra actually functions.
The first protest action came over the weekend of Nov. 7 and 8. With last week’s talks over and no deal, L’Auditori had to suspend the three concerts planned at the Auditorio Nacional in Madrid, and the orchestra never traveled to the Spanish capital.
What it means for concertgoers
For people holding tickets, the strike has so far meant concerts dropped at short notice, in one case after the audience had already taken their seats. The orchestra says the strike that began last weekend continues, and neither side has announced a date for new talks or an end to the stoppage.
Source: 3Cat 324
