President's Report
We have been actively working with members of the Palm Beach Opera Orchestra over the past 9 months and we continue to assist them in every way possible. It’s been very encouraging to see musicians come forward seeking to have some control over their musical destiny. Hopefully this is the beginning of a trend for other orchestras run as "benevolent dictatorships."
… We have been asked about health insurance, and recently in the newsletter we asked you to return a survey regarding your interest in a group HMO-type policy. There have only been about 20-25 responses so far, although I believed the interest would be much higher than that. We have found a couple of interesting possibilities that would allow us to offer single coverage at about $150-$175 for an individual, to $350-$400 for a family. Please contact us immediately if interested as it’s a numbers game; the more we have, the better the rates.
…Why should you be filing contracts and sending in the pension? If you played 15 jobs a year for 15 years in a row with $100 scale wages on each job, then retire at age 60 and collect your pension for 15 years, you would have increased your earnings by 50%! (Chart assumes you played $1,500.00 of scale wages per year for 15 years)…
Scale Retirement
Wages: Age: Pension "bonus":
$22,500 55 $7,063 (31%)
$22,500 60 $11,307 (50%)
$22,500 65 $14,094 (63%)
Why wouldn’t you want someone to increase your earnings by 50%? Is there anybody out there that’s going to hand you half of what you earned during your career when you decide to retire? Do you believe in the tooth fairy? This pension fund is a great tool just waiting to be used; what exactly are you waiting for??
…Delray Incident Epilogue: if you continue to work without the benefit of a union contract, then be prepared to settle these kind of situations on your own. Local 655 doesn’t have the resources to expend working on nonunion/no-contract problems. If you use an AFM contract, you allow us to go after problems without having our hands tied behind our backs. MAKE SURE THERE IS A SIGNED UNION CONTRACT BEFORE YOU ACCEPT THE JOB!
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