Are they getting taxpayer money or is all income from selling tickets to events?
If all money is private, they deserve every penny.
I believe it’s mostly private money. Ticket sales, sponsorships and donors.
They went on strike to preserve defined benefit pensions, but it’s pretty much impossible to properly fund such a pension scheme without outside subsidy. At $160k minimum salaries, that plan is going to be particularly expensive.
Given that these people are basically totally unnecessary in the modern world and can be replaced in toto with an MP4 download, I wouldn’t expect them to win out in the end on an economically outrageous demand.
The venues they perform at are typically taxpayer owned.