Doing A Good Thing For The Right Reasons in Philly

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Hot on the heels of being accused by the Philadelphia Orchestra Association (POA) “that their collective efforts at revenue generation have not had a material impact on the budget”  the Philadelphia Orchestra musicians are donating even more of their time, money, and energy to help improve their orchestra’s finances. On Sunday, February 13, 2005 former Philadelphia Orchestra Music Director, Riccardo Muti will lead the full orchestra in a performance at Philadelphia …

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The Negotiation Process: A Historical Timeline

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The manner in which contract negotiations have developed over the past 50 years has been fast and furious.  Even the term “traditional bargaining” is in itself, not very accurate since it’s only been used for the past 40 years or so. Before then, musicians didn’t even have a voice in how their contracts were negotiated; it was all handled between the AFM local union officers and the orchestra managers. By and …

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Pension Plans And Negotiations Part 2

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To continue where Part 1 left off, we’ll examine how some of the pension issues related to the Philadelphia Orchestra situation have influenced the course of negotiations. The Philadelphia Orchestra Association (POA) utilizes a defined benefits pension plan. This means the POA and not the individual players assume the risk to ensure that the pension plan has enough funds to make the required payments to retired employees. The POA expands on …

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Pension Plans And Negotiations Part 1

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Among the many issues related to contract negotiations, one of the leading subjects is retirement benefits and pension plans in particular. This negotiation season is no different, but pension plans seem to be more of a hot button issue. The reasons are related to the ability of orchestra associations to adequately fund their pension plans as required by their contract with the musicians and Federal regulations. Take the current negotiation underway …

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The End Of Round One At Cleveland

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Well it seems the Cleveland Orchestra is the first to officially arrive at the contract negotiation home stretch.  Although “arrive” and home stretch” are subjective terms. Management and musicians have agreed to “talk and play” by extending the current contract into he beginning of the 2004-2005 concert season.  This will allow them to open the season without interruption to their concert schedule, which from a PR standpoint is a good thing …

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