The 4/25/2012 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer published an article by Peter Dobrin that reports the dispute between the Philadelphia Orchestra Association (POA) and the American Federation of Musicians and Employers’ Pension Fund (AFM-EPF) has officially come to a close. For those unaware, the AFM-EPF had been screaming bloody murder that the POA owed as much as $35 million for exiting from the fund. Consequently, it came as a bit of a surprise to learn that AFM-EFP ended up settling for $1.75 million.
American Federation of Musicians
The Ridge Address: A Warning-Response Opportunity
Although I plan to post my observations about the entire 2012 American Orchestra Summit later this week, I wanted to focus on what was perhaps the most engaging component of the entire event: a keynote address from International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians (ICSOM) chair Bruce Ridge and the subsequent rebuttal session with League of American Orchestras president Jesse Rosen.
Louisville Musicians Reject Arbitration Then Miss An Opportunity
On Thursday, 2/16/2012 the Louisville Orchestra (LO) Musicians formally rejected an offer from management to enter binding arbitration. This comes as no real surprise in that the offer had a number of provisos tailored to ensure that any decision would conform to financial and operational parameters contained in their previous proposals, all of which have been previously rejected by LO musicians. Moreover, the lack of any input on selecting the pool …
Call To Action: Stop SOPA
For the last several weeks, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) has become a hot topic of debate within the House Judiciary Committee. In a nutshell, SOPA is a proposed law lobbied for and supported by a large conglomerate of media organizations and sponsored by Representative Lamar Smith (R TX). On one hand, the law is addressing something of real concern; online piracy. One the other hand, its solution is akin to killing the patient to cure the disease.
The Domino Theory, Orchestra Pension Style
The 12/1/2011 edition of the New York Times published an article by Dan Wakin and Mary Williams Walsh that examined the impact of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s (POA) withdrawal from the American Federation of Musicians and Employers Pension Fund (AFM-EPF). In case you’re coming into the situation without much knowledge, here are the highlights you need to get up to speed.