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Mark Iacona – XRIJF 2012Category: Legal
Jazz Fights For Justice
Classical music organizations and musicians are not the only ones facing labor disputes, contract negotiations, and pension issues. This recent article from the AFM‘s International Musician tells the story of New York City jazz musicians who are trying to convince jazz clubs to pay into pensions for their retirement. Click here to read the article.
Read More →NLRB happens
In a nice example of synchronicity, the Jacksonville Symphony musicians, with the assistance of their counsel, Liza Medina, proved my point about the dangers of an employer declaring impasse within hours of my having written this post last week by winning a ruling from the NLRB on the subject: There is enough evidence of unfair
Read More →Why no impasse in Minnesota?
One of the continuing mysteries of the Minnesota Orchestra dispute (for me, at least) was why the management chose to lock out its musicians rather than declare impasse and impose its proposal. Drew McManus believes he has an explanation: On the surface, the MOA executive committee’s public angst over the lack of a musician offer
Read More →The curious incident of the Boards in the night-time
These have been dreadful times for the musicians of the orchestras at the epicenter of the current epidemic of radical salary-slashing. Those orchestras’ audiences have been affected too, as have businesses in the areas around the concert halls. For students of labor relations, though, these have been very interesting days. No doubt pathologists during the
Read More →A bad settlement in Atlanta
The musicians of the Atlanta Symphony voted to ratify a tentative settlement that was pretty much what ASO management (or perhaps the Woodruff Center) wanted all along: Symphony Orchestra accepted a new collective bargaining agreement Wednesday, barely averting a postponement of the fall season. The deal will cost players $5.2 million in compensation over two
Read More →That was quick
Maybe not the shortest orchestral strike on record, but likely close to it: They entered the negotiating room in the Chicago Symphony Association’s lawyer’s office at 2 p.m. Monday, and by about 6:45 p.m. a tentative agreement had been reached in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s first musicians strike in 21 years. The orchestra announced shortly
Read More →Norman doesn’t get negotiations
It’s not surprising that Norman Lebrecht was right on top of the Chicago Symphony strike. It’s also not surprising that much of what he wrote missed the point or was simply wrong: Chicago is where the present inflationary cycle started when Henry Fogel, the former manager, caved in to a union demand for a $104,000
Read More →Someone is Stealing Your Stuff-Attitudes About Copyright are Morphing
If you’re an older person with copyrighted material you probably have a different view toward protecting and publishing your creative work than a younger person. Here’s an interesting blog from Andrew Taylor in Arts Journal that was posted on 6/7/11. It seems that times could be a changin’. On profits, proliferation, and piracy It’s a [...]
Read More →Rethinking Music: A Solutions Focused Conference
An interesting conference for musicians will take place on April 26-27, 2011. The presenters call it, “Rethink Music: Creativity, Commerce, and Policy in the 21st Century.” It’s billed as a “solutions-focused conference,” and the presenters are the Berklee College of Music and MIDEM in association with the Harvard Business School. Get more information here. Allen [...]
Read More →A substitute orchestra in Detroit?
In a front-page article in the Detroit News, Michael H. Hodges is pessimistic about the future of the DSO: …outsiders warn that suspending the season involves a leap into the unknown, one that not only threatens the orchestra’s current hold on audiences and donors, but could put the 2011-2012 season and the orchestra’s entire future
Read More →It's the silly season
It’s nice to know that the management of the Louisville Orchestra think that something about the orchestra is valuable. Too bad it’s the name and not the musicians: In a sign of how far apart the two sides remain, an attorney for Louisville Orchestra Inc. has threatened legal action if its musicians continue to operate
Read More →And they could sell tickets to staff meetings!
Labor law bars managements from implementing the governance solution outlined by Bertold Brecht: After the uprising of the 17th June The Secretary of the Writers Union Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee Stating that the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government And could win it back only By redoubled efforts. Would it not
Read More →AFM wins in court; won't matter much
The AFM (or at least its lawyers) had a good win in labor law land the other day: The AFM has won a significant victory affecting orchestra media negotiations. The AFM has consistently taken the position that orchestra managements who are signatory to AFM media agreements (such as the Symphony, Opera or Ballet Audio Visual
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