Part of me doesn't know what to make of the current musicians' union strike. Part of me supports organized labor unions as they do, to a certain extent, protect the individual from being overworked unnecessarily, etc etc. However, part of me also knows that there are some unions that use the fact that they are unions to get away with doing as little as possible (my Bear Stearns experience of finding electricians literally sleeping on the job while we ran around doing their work because they were asleep being part of it).

Here's my thing...the musicans say that they are protecting live music on Broadway. However, some shows will never make it to Broadway because they will be required to use an extraordinary amount of musicians in some theatres when they are not needed. I think some concessions need to be made in regards to minimums because the more that the producers can do to make sure that a show remains profitable means the more the musicians can work and make money playing on a show and the show can run longer and the musicians have stable employment. I think cutting the number in half at some of the larger theatres is a equitable solution. Theatre is expensive enough as it is. The reason there are such high costs is because union contracts (musicians, IATSE, etc) have risen so much. Talking with some actor friends their more pissed that Actors' Equity hasn't let them strike so they can make some more money and are more pissed that no matter who they elect into office to represent them always seems to bow down to the demands of the producers and they get very little in return.

Live music will only disappear from Broadway when it starts becoming too expensive to put music on Broadway. I guess you can say I'm leaning a little towards the producers because I think the profit margins will allow shows to run longer and therefore give them more money in the end.