The musicians of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra released the following press release at 2:19PM CT announcing a tentative agreement which provides for Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra concerts to resume this week. (UPDATE: The Jacksonville Symphony Association distributed a press release about approximately 90 minutes after the musician release. It is included at the end of this post)…
Labor Relations
We Value Your Option (unless it means changing our plans)
Robert Levine, president of the Milwaukee Musicians Association, International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians (ICSOM) chairman emeritus, former editor of Senza Sordino (ICSOM’s newsletter), and principal violist of the Milwaukee Symphony [Robert must have an industrial sized business card], posted an intriguing article at his blog about the Jacksonville Symphony negotiations. In his post, Robert compares current events in Jacksonville with his own experiences in Milwaukee when faced with a refusal to move from a pre-set final offer at the onset of negotiations…
Rhetoric On The Rise In Jacksonville
After a brief hiatus following the holiday season, the Jacksonville Symphony Association (JSA) and Jacksonville Symphony Players’ Association (JSPA) have resumed their respective public relations campaigns via the nine week long lockout. First up, was an opinion piece published on 1/8/2008 by the Florida Times-Union written by JSA past board chair and current board member, Steven T. Halverson…
Concert Cancellations And New Fundraising In Jacksonville
In an email message from 1/2/2008, Jacksonville Symphony Association (JSA) Executive Director, Alan Hopper, confirmed that the message appearing on the jsomusicians.org message board on 12/28/2007 was written by JSA executive board member Tom Beames (details of that letter are available here). Hopper also confirmed that personalized versions of the letter have been distributed to some individuals; however, there was no response to questions about whether or not Tom Beames plans to step down from the JSA board or if the board will ask him to resign…
Recent Developments in Jacksonville
The "Jacksonville Emails" debacle moved to a new phase over the weekend when a user identifying himself as "Henson Markham" posted what he identified as "Tom Beames letter to the JSA Board" at the jsomusicians.org guestbook. Conversely, the Jacksonville Symphony Association (JSA) has acknowledged that they will release any official response written by or on the behalf of JSA Executive Board member Tom Beames to his email message from 12/19/2007 as soon as it is available but to date, no such response has been issued. Nevertheless, the letter attributed to Mr. Beames posted late Friday evening, 12/28/2007 was apologetic for what it defined as "misunderstandings" of "typographical" and "missed context" nature. The letter closes with the author stating "For even a single member of this orchestra to see me as anything but an active, grateful, well-intended volunteer trying to make our community and its citizens all that is possible, is unacceptable. I implore you to accept the remorse of an impassioned but at times clumsy friend that is subject to mistakes and foils like anyone else". Three days after the letter allegedly written by Mr. Beames, the JSA Board of directors cancelled the musician’s health care coverage…