Tag - Negotiations

1
Some thoughts on Hartford
2
Justice for extras – some practical considerations
3
Sub pay in Minnesota – the blame game
4
What mattered in 2014?
5
Who Won the Met Negotiations?
6
Why you don’t want your orchestra’s name to start with “M”
7
Our conspiratorial industry
8
Why not try negotiating? (with update)
9
Mediation in Minnesota
10
When Vampire Squid meets orchestra

Some thoughts on Hartford

The Hartford Symphony has been in the news recently, and not in the way that orchestras want to be: Behind the two-year dispute between the Hartford Symphony Orchestra and the musicians union over a new labor agreement is the symphony’s effort to remake itself to appeal to changing audiences and tastes. The orchestra says it’s[…]

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Justice for extras – some practical considerations

There was an unusual amount of feedback on my post last week about the pay disparity between full-time musicians and subs in Minnesota and how that might have come about. Some of the feedback confirmed my suspicions that the root of the problem was a “new model” mindset on the part of some board members.[…]

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Sub pay in Minnesota – the blame game

One of the issues at play during the Year of Three Lockouts continues to reverberate around the symphonoblogosphere – the question of pay for substitute and extra musicians, and in particular the reduction in that pay that was part of the Minnesota settlement. Drew McManus called attention to it in a year-in-review post, where he[…]

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What mattered in 2014?

The Danish cartoonist Robert Storm Petersen famously said that “it’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” Saying what mattered in 2014 is essentially making a prediction about what people in the future will think about our present. But it’s worth trying nonetheless; 2014 was a pretty dramatic year in our business, and merits[…]

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Who Won the Met Negotiations?

According to Norman Lebrecht and Terry Teachout, the unions did: (Lebrecht) [Gelb]demanded 16-17% cuts from the orchestra and chorus and settled for 3.5 percent now, 3.5 percent later. No huge pain for the musicians, but huge gain. They have won the right to be party to major spending decisions, limiting Gelb’s powers as manager and[…]

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Why you don’t want your orchestra’s name to start with “M”

First Minnesota, then Milwaukee, and now … Memphis: Following in the tumultuous footsteps of its Nashville counterpart, the Memphis Symphony Orchestra announced that it is facing a financial crisis that will require “aggressive steps” to complete the current season. “The Memphis Symphony Orchestra celebrates decades of accomplishments thanks to a committed group of patrons, musicians[…]

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Our conspiratorial industry

One of the more intriguing aspects to the psychology of our industry is a general propensity to conspiratorial thinking. It’s not hard to find amongst musicians; the widespread belief that the League of American Orchestras A National Service Organization is behind all our woes is the best-known example, but conspiracy theories fester within orchestras as[…]

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Why not try negotiating? (with update)

It’s clear that crunch time is coming on the Northern Front (aka the Minnesota orchestra labor “negotiations”). The board has said that they’re willing to indefinitely delay the unveiling of their shiny new $50 million toy lobby, to see the prospect of ever going back to Carnegie Hall evaporate, and to watch Vänskä walk. The[…]

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Mediation in Minnesota

The Minnesota Orchestra lock-out – the longest second-longest formal lock-out in our industry’s history – may have entered a new phase, according to Graydon Royce of the Minneapolis Star Tribune: The Minnesota Orchestra’s management and musicians — now in the 11th month of a bitter labor lockout — are quietly talking again behind the scenes.[…]

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When Vampire Squid meets orchestra

One of the best metaphors in recent years was coined by Matt Taibbi, who wrote one of the great articles on the financial crisis of 2008: The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face[…]

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