As far as I remember (I have no documentation available right now), J.W.
de Bruyn was more than just a "technician" and actually played an active
role in setting up the electronic music studio of Philips Research Labs,
which formed the basis of the now unfortunately deceased studios of the
Institute of Sonology of the University of Utrecht.  I doubt that de
Bruyn's assistance had anything to do with studios being unionized or
not.  The Philips' studio was part of the Research Labs and as such not
a regular studio.  The main reason is, I think, that it wasn't
necessarily obvious how to use the equipment.  Also, because of the lack
of voltage control, any pair of additional hands and ears would have
been helpful.  One of the anecdotes told at Sonology at the time was
about the Cobra painter Karel Appel who wanted to create electronic
music for a documentary about his work.  The photos from that episode
showed a transformed studio, as wild as the man's paintings.  Some form
of assistance and supervision was definitely needed.

Job van Zuijlen

Grant Covell wrote:
> 
> An article in Experimental Music Instruments (Vol. 13, No. 3) focusses on
> IX's involvement and mentions a recent book: Space Calculated in Seconds:
> The Philips Pavillion, Lc Corbusier, Edgard Varese, by Marc Treib (Princeton
> UP, 1996) as well as the Philips Technical Reviews for 1958 which detail JW
> de Bruyn's work with Varese to create Poeme (Studios were unionized back