The Honolulu Advertiser from Honolulu, Hawaii • 39

B4 Sunday, September 26, 1993 The Honolulu Advertiser eamier side of Hawaii Here's musicians' case 4i2 THE PRICE OF PARADISE, Volume II ed. by Randall W. Roth Mutual Publishing, 1993 By Bob Dye Special to The Advertiser Suddenly Norman Okamura's life "A key person in state government called me in and told me to 'back he said. "I can still hear his words: 'Hey, Norman, when the economic buttons are pressed, you're going to get hurt. Your family is going to get hurt.

And the company you're working for is going to get It was like something out of the Godfather movies." Norman and his family were paying the price of living in paradise, and the cost was too high. "At first I was shocked. Then I resigned to whatever was going to happen," he said. "Finally, after going home and playing with my children, I became angry so much so that I decided to do something about the practices that caused me to leave my job with the state." lost wages and guide the symphony back to financial health. It also shortened the season by six weeks, which included cutting the popular Waikiki Shell concerts.

Mr. Dechario claims that "only as a result of these painful cuts was the society able to complete the season." -Actually, this cancellation caused overall subscription sales to drop, prompting the marketing director to state that the cancellation was a mistake. All of these cuts were illegally imposed. An arbitrator has ruled that the society must pay the musicians, yet $400,000 in lost wages and benefits still has not been paid. More recently, the society has refused to negotiate with us in good faith.

It has never responded to our proposal of June 3, and the its last proposal to us called for 32 percent cuts, which would lower the salaries of most full-time musicians to under $21,000 a year. Management and the board now expect the musicians to perform without a contract at this low rate. We cannot agree to work under these conditions, because doing so would relieve the pressure to reach a satisfactory settlement, take away our bargaining power, and still leave us without a contract. Why does the Symphony Society persist in turning to the musicians and the community to bail it out? Shouldn't the board of directors be raising money and protecting the orchestra, instead of damaging it with irresponsible cuts? Rather than complaining about -musicians and working to break our contracts, shouldn't the directors be working twice as hard to raise money and reach new audiences? Milton II. Carter Jr.

is president of the Musicians' Association of Hawaii, Local 677, American Federation of Musicians. By Milton II. Carter Jr. Special to The Advertiser THOSE who have followed the plight of the Honolulu Symphony are by now familiar with statements by the symphony's management and board of directors blaming musicians and their salaries for the current crisis. In his Sept.

12 Focus article, Honolulu Symphony Society Executive Director Tony Dechario stretched the truth in several ways to make this position seem plausible. The musicians of the Honolulu Symphony are not on strike, despite what Mr. Dechario has said, but are picketing the Symphony Society for locking us out. The society has canceled the beginning of the season and, consequently, unfair labor charges have been filed with the National Labor Relations Board against the society for this illegal lockout. The musicians' salaries are not the cause of the symphony's present woes.

The symphony is in a crisis situation that its leadership could have avoided. The society's own five-year plan predicted that more aggressive fundraising was needed to ensure the symphony's long-term health. Despite this knowledge, fund-raising goals were lowered, and consequently revenues dropped. Although community and government support has been very high, there has been no increase in fund-raising efforts on the part of the board. Mr.

Dechario deceptively states that musicians' salaries have doubled from 1986-1992. He does not mention that the musicians spent 16 weeks of the 1986-87 season on strike, lowering salaries that year by nearly half. Obviously, it is not appropriate to compare a season in which only half a salary was earned with a full season, and to term that a "doubling" of salaries. Mr. Dechario also referred to unemployment compensation that some musicians receive between seasons with the symphony.

It is inappropriate to discuss unemployment compensation as if it were a part of an employer's wage package. The musicians are unemployed not by choice, but because symphony management provides only 42 weeks of work. That is management's decision. Yet another misleading comment is that the "average" musician's salary is 15 percent above minimum salary. Minimum salary is a far more relevant number than average salary.

The salaries of more than half the full-time orchestra members are at or within 5 percent of minimum scale. Also, minimum scale is not just an entry-level salary; there are loyal musicians who have been in the orchestra for decades who are still in that low-paid majority described above. Last season, management broke its contract with the musicians and stole more than 25 percent of each musicians wage, without offering a plan to restore the sovereignty issues. His questions were answered by some 50 articulate citizens and six brilliant cartoonists. The answers result in more than enough compelling reasons to get out of town.

Or, if you're Norman Okamura, some good reasons to plant your feet and fight back. Who is the enemy? As essayist after essayist detailed government waste, political stupidity and cupidity, insider deals by cronies, insensitivity and willful ignorance, arrogance and perversion of power (Palaka included), it became painfully clear that we voted ourselves into this mess. And since the enemy is us, we can vote ourselves out of it. Political hopefuls can find among the 41 essays enough planks to construct a platform from which to launch a successful campaign for office. If we are to save our paradise, cleaning house is no longer just a good idea whose time has come, it is an economic and psychological necessity.

The book's major weakness is that it is written mostly by men. Only two essays are by women, though a few others joined with men to author articles. But in only one of those essays, a frightening one about the fate of Hawaii's "throw-away kids," co-written by Nancy O'Malley, could I hear a woman's voice. Women are the real experts on the day-to-day costs of living in Hawaii. Before work, they are on the highways transporting the kids to distant private schools, because the public schools nearby don't do the job.

They know the price of filling up a gas tank and a shopping cart. And how high taxes and higher tuition payments eat up their paychecks. Few women enjoy three-martini lunches, fly business class and relax on golf links. If they are older, they are baby-sitting grandkids and caring for their aged parents. They've mortgaged their houses for a second time so the kids can have enough cash to make a down payment on a house of their own.

Roth never promised us a gender-balanced book, just a tough one. And that he delivered. But maybe in Volume III, we can hear more from articulate women who don't sound like one of the boys. The hands that rock the cradle probably will be the ones that shake the posturing politicians off their pedestals and bring the state house tumbling down. I'd like to meet them in Volume III.

Bob Dye is a Kailua-based writer and historian. One of the brave things Norman did was to publicly answer the question "Is government in Hawaii corrupt?" It was posed by Randall W. Roth, editor of "The Price of Paradise, Volume II." Norman Okamura says the person who warned him about economic retaliation was state Budget Director Yukio Takemoto, his former boss. Takemoto says that's an "out-and-out lie;" that he never suggested harm would come to Okamura, his family or business for speaking out. Roth, an attorney and University of Hawaii law school professor, asked 40 other questions about the cost of living in Hawaii about the loss of the aloha spirit, traffic congestion, I i CZ I A month of Sundays JLnm.

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