President's Report
It’s been a very busy time with the Boca Pops and the Florida Philharmonic Orchestras negotiations and settlements for Tom Moore and the Delray incident (which has brought new meaning to the term "one armed paper hanger").
Although we have helped finalize most of these situations, others remain to be resolved and so we will continue to work to reach settlements as quickly and efficiently as possible.
After 5 months of hard work, The Boca Pops Orchestra negotiations were ratified by an overwhelming majority of the voters on September 26th. It needs to be said that these negotiations were well organized and amicable from the very beginning. Both sides exchanged offer sheets prior to our first meeting, and that, combined with a positive atmosphere, resulted in a lack of "posturing" and other negative aspects that have been a common scene in past negotiations.
The results are a five year deal that includes annual increases in salary, increases in doubling, and significant increases in pension (now based on scale rather than minimum wages). In addition, a number of work conditions were improved to help make the work environment more conducive to the making of music.
One of the most important changes is a mechanism put in place to help increase the communication between the musicians and management. This mechanism will help resolve potential conflicts before they reach the grievance/arbitration stage, and at the same time will help foster a more harmonious relationship between the musicians and management.
The Florida Philharmonic Orchestra negotiations were just concluded on October 16th after 9 months of hard work and effort by a lot of people, including a very dedicated Orchestra Committee, two different Union negotiators, and Local 655. Throughout this, there was another change of leadership on the management side (unfortunately a recurring theme for the past 10 years).
The new contract was ratified by an extremely narrow margin, which only went to underscore just how divided the members of the orchestra were over how to handle the extremely difficult situation in which they found themselves. On one hand they are being told by management that the Orchestra has no money and failure to accept this deal will put the Orchestra out of business. On the other hand, the musicians know how much money management is wasting and how underpaid they are in comparison to their peers, and while management agrees, little has been done to rectify the situation.
The Orchestra Committee demonstrated over and over how management has literally wasted money in many areas, including increasing management salaries at the expense of the orchestra’s percentage share of the overall budget. While there was much discussion and quite a bit of disagreement over how to handle this situation, in the end, a very slight majority voted in favor of the contract.
What do we make of the situation now? Certainly, the ball is now in management’s court. I plan to do my best to "hold their feet to the fire," to live up to their promise to correct the past funding problems, and to finally get their financial house in order. It’s certainly a documented fact that fund-raisers need labor stability in order to be effective in helping to reduce past debts and begin getting an endowment in place. But it is also a fact that this same scenario has been thrust down the orchestras’ throat in the past and the "buck" has continued to be passed from generation to generation of management, while the musicians ultimately bear the cost of the problem. Let’s hope the "buck" ends with the current management team and governing board. We’ll certainly try to work with them to that end.
Write reply
Comments must be approved before being published.
