ROPA 2002 Unity Conference Report

Rochelle Gnagey-Skolnick, PBO ROPA Delegate

As the newly elected delegate from the Palm Beach Opera Orchestra (PBOO), it was an honor and a thrill to represent the players at the 2002 ROPA and Unity conference which took place August 14-17 in Ottawa, Canada. It was particularly exciting because as a Unity Conference it included participants from the ICSOM and OCSM orchestras. Also in attendance were representatives from the AFM¹s Symphonic Services Division (SSD) and the officers of the AFM. A thorough report on the week¹s events could stretch to many pages, so I¹ve chosen a few highlights to share. Anyone who would like more information is welcome to contact me directly.

Negotiating Orchestras Workshop- A special service of the SSD, this day-long workshop allowed delegates from those orchestras which will be negotiating contracts in 2003 to focus on concerns they will be facing in the coming year. Strategies for recruiting orchestra members to serve on committees, effectively surveying the players to learn their priorities for the new contract, and gathering financial data on the institution in order to present an informed proposal were discussed. Specific aspects of contractual language were also addressed, as were pension fund issues and Section 125 (cafeteria benefits) plans. Additionally, SSD staff had assessed each orchestra¹s contract and prepared a list of suggested issues for the Orchestra Committee to address in negotiations.

ROPA Orchestra Reports- The first full day of the official conference was largely devoted to these reports. Each delegate from the 63 member orchestras was required to come to the conference with 100 copies of a written report of the "State of the Orchestra" back home. Then, we were each given three minutes in which to make an oral presentation either summarizing our written reports or expanding on particular aspects of the events of the past year. Since the PBOO is a brand new member, I spent some of my report giving background on the orchestra and the South Florida music scene in general. Anyone interested to read my written report may contact me directly for a copy. It was very sobering to hear repeated again and again the tales of financial woes from everywhere in the country. San Jose has recently folded and Tulsa has postponed the beginning of its season. Shreveport musicians have made enormous sacrifices to keep their orchestra afloat. It was quite moving to see that there are so many dedicated players who are working so very hard to ensure the continued survival and growth of their orchestras.

Ron Bauers- The finance guru of contract negotiations. When asked to do so by the Local and the SSD, Ron Bauers performs an audit of the finances of the orchestra (or in our case, opera company) in order to provide the negotiating team with an informed picture of the money issues. In a session frighteningly like the math classes I avoided like the plague in high school, he gave instructions on reading his audits and presented side-by-side analysis of the St. Louis Symphony (which has been fiscally troubled) and the Minnesota Orchestra (which appears to be quite fiscally sound). Fortunately for those of us who are numerically impaired, he plots most of the data on quite readable graphs and charts. The big lesson? Slow and steady wins the race. Beware of big fluctuations either up or down when looking at the finances of your institution.

Pit Orchestra Caucus- Ten of the ROPA member orchestras are pit orchestras and pit work accounts for a significant number of the services performed by many of the other ensembles. The presence of the ICSOM and OCSM delegates brought the total number of pit orchestras represented to 19. This spirited bunch convened a special session to discuss the vagaries of pit work and to formulate a plan for a special wage and conditions chart devoted to pit orchestras. The SSD has agreed to publish a chart for us which will take as its model the standard ROPA and ICSOM charts, but will include information specific to pit orchestras for which there is no space on the regular charts. Each group will continue to be listed in the appropriate players'
conference chart, but will have an additional listing in the new chart. This will allow us to make more direct comparisons between our own circumstances and those of the other institutions whose activities are most like ours. We discussed safety and comfort in the pit and shared (with great enthusiasm) war stories of stage debris falling on players. We also discussed standards
for musician input in Music Director searches, which has, unfortunately, turned out to have an immediate relevance to the PBOO that I couldn¹t have anticipated.

Music Police- I hope you all had the opportunity to read Lennie Leibowitz¹s article on this topic in the August 2002 issue of the IM. This somewhat flippant title refers to what can be a very serious problem in orchestras. The SSD did a presentation on the subject (Lennie's health prevented him from attending the conference) and discussion of the "music police" was a
leitmotif of the entire conference. The single idea which emerged for me (and the sentence I scribbled in my notes) from all the discussions was this: Musicians never INITIATE proceedings against a fellow musician. This topic is very complex and fraught with legal, moral, artistic and emotional implications. The bottom line, however, is that the minute musicians are pitted against one another is the same minute in which solidarity begins to erode. And solidarity is the single guiding principle which has allowed musicians to achieve a living wage and a decent lifestyle.

Resolutions and Election of Officers- At the end of the conference there was a flurry of democratic activity as the delegates voted on 11 resolutions and elected several new officers. In an upset of the incumbent slate, the delegates elected both a new President and a new Editor of the Leading Tone (LT), which is ROPA¹s newsletter. New President Barbara Zmich is a violist
in the Michigan Opera Theater Orchestra and serves on her local¹s executive board. Leading Tone Editor Paul Castillo is a clarinetist in the Long Beach Symphony and an LA freelancer. I think we can expect lots of exciting developments from these two in the next year. Among the resolutions adopted by the membership was a revision of the LT publishing schedule to produce 4 issues between the months of September and May. This will allow for greater communication among the members during the time of year when most orchestras are actually working together. Another resolution added a fifth Member-at-Large to accommodate the growing membership of ROPA. The Members-at-Large are responsible for communicating directly with their assigned orchestra delegates and acting as a conduit to the ROPA executive board for the concerns of those delegates. Additional resolutions dealt with appointing ROPA representatives to a joint union-management task force to investigate the problem [of rising health insurance premiums] and explore the possibility of an industry-wide initiative to ameliorate the increases, and with submitting legislation to the 2003 AFM Convention that the AFM include a rank-and-file symphonic musician among the trustees appointed by the AFM President to the Board of the AFM-EP fund. In a showdown which cried out for an accompaniment of "Dueling Banjos," delegates from Knoxville and Memphis competed to host next year's conference. In the end, Elvis exerted that inescapable pull and we're all "goin' to Graceland" next summer.

In summation, I would have to say that my week in Ottawa ranks as one of my most inspiring experiences. I thank the players of the Palm Beach Opera Orchestra for entrusting me to represent them there and I thank Local 655 for their support.