Members of a Chicago orchestra have gone on strike, following their employer’s new contract proposal. The company, Lyric Opera, would like to reduce the size of the orchestra and the number of performance weeks due to financial pressures. In just four years, the amount of donations and grants that the orchestra receives annually has decreased by nearly half. However, orchestra members argue that reducing the orchestra size and number of performances will only exacerbate the problem by further decreasing interest in the opera.
See "Both sides entrenched in Lyric Opera labor dispute", Howard Reich and Hal Dardick, Chicago Tribune, October 12, 2018