Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff · Democracy at Work, Richard D. Wolff

The Workers' Struggle within The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra

July 8, 2025·32 min·3 clips

Met Opera musicians were furloughed 18 months without salary while other orchestras paid theirs—and got no back pay.

The program begins with civic housekeeping. The host asks listeners to contact Charlie Fabian, points them to Understanding Capitalism, and puts the hour inside a wider push for economic education. Then the news arrives fast. The opening agenda covers the U.S.-Iran military conflict, Mamdani's Democratic primary victory, resignations by two union leaders from the Democratic National Committee, and a BRICS milestone. The argument is blunt: Europe, the United States, China, and the BRICS are not separate headlines here. They sit on the same economic map. Tariffs are the test case. The host says Trump's approach is isolating the United States, because other countries can move trade through relationships outside American control. After that, the show shifts from global power to labor power at the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center in New York City. Stephanie Mortimer gets a careful introduction as the orchestra's principal piccoloist since 2000 and chair of the Met Orchestra Committee for the past three years. The interview stays close to the ground: work, community, pandemic-era support, and negotiations under management pressure. The point lands harder because it is so plain. The work got done despite management, not by management. Solidarity did the heavy lifting. The ending leaves the story open, since negotiations may still be underway in the autumn. The host wants the musicians back once the fight has moved, and the audience will want to know whether that solidarity held. War, elections, tariffs, BRICS, and orchestra negotiations all keep circling the same problem: who has power, and who has to build enough together to push back?

As heard by us

A labor story that widens from the Met stage to the structure of power.

This episode opens with U.S.-Iran military conflict and a Democratic primary upset, then shifts into a conversation with New York Metropolitan Opera musicians about what labor power looks like inside a major cultural institution.

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Why you'd press play

You want labor politics framed through a Met Opera musicians interview.

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