Plus: OpenAI has pulled the brakes on going public this year amid “safety concerns,” and a cluster of earthquakes rattled the SF Bay Area’s most dangerous fault this weekend.
Less than 24 hours before unionized musicians under the sixth locale of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) were set to open the 104th season of the San Francisco Opera, the group announced on social media that its contract negotiations had failed to materialize, prompting them to collectively go on strike. As a result, what would’ve been the SF Opera’s debut show for the season was abruptly canceled; no rescheduling of the show has been announced, and the entire season remains in limbo as union contracts for the participating musicians remain at a stalemate.
“San Francisco Opera is increasing revenues as much as possible, but expense reduction is also critical,” SF Opera said, per ABC7. “The Opera Orchestra’s compensation structure has become increasingly out of alignment with the volume of work available, and we must make gradual adjustments to the structure so that it better reflects the needs of this time.”
The unionized musicians with the SF Opera were faced with a 26% pay cut under new contract negotiations proposed in July; this was then brought down to 20% and later changed to a five-year pay freeze — an amendment that gives national inflationary metrics, which would amount to roughly a 20% pay cut over the term’s course; these aforementioned information metrics don’t take into account SF’s rising housing costs, which are up over 23% this year alone, compared to an observed national average of around 0.04%. For context, the SF Opera’s general director, who exists exclusively under the company’s payroll and direction, experienced a 72% salary increase 72% between the 2022 and 2025 fiscal years, from $424,000 to $729,000 … all while management with the company suggests musicians must succumb to pay cuts in order for SF Opera to continue amid donation and funding declines.
As of publication, negotiations between AFM-unionized musicians and the SF Opera remain unresolved, and it’s unclear when this season’s performances will begin.
What else transpired over the weekend? Let’s take a look.
- OpenAI will not go public this year, after all. Citing “safety concerns” and a clear response to the public mania around p(doom) scenarios, OpenAI’s CEO and Co-founder Sam Altman announced on Sunday he will not take his private company public, deflating the hype around its estimated $1 trillion IPO; Anthropic, however, still plans to go public before the year’s end on NASDAQ with an estimated IPO of now north of $2 trillion; more info.
- Moderate earthquakes rattled the SF Bay Area Sunday and into Monday. A magnitude 2.0 and 3.0 struck in Brentwood on the Hayward Fault Zone, the region’s most at-risk geological formation capable of producing a magnitude 6.0 or greater shake within the next 30 years, and could be felt as far away as Marin County; more info.
- San Francisco firefighters responded to two small fires. A small fire on the 1200 block of South Vaeness and a one-alarm fire in Crocker Amazon were snuffed out by SFFD Saturday and Sunday, respectively, with no injuries reported, though the latter fire did require evacuations; more info.
