Posted by Fredric Einstein on October 21, 2000 at 04:07:22:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Florida Philharmonic Orchestra Strike posted by Fredric Einstein on October 21, 2000 at 04:01:52:
Here's the article from the Oct 21st, 2000 issue of the Miami Herald.....
Players offer to make music
Philharmonic season up in air
BY JAMES ROOS
jroos(AT)herald.com
Striking Florida Philharmonic musicians offered Friday to play immediately at the new salary level while they work out final details of a contract with management.
The full orchestra, which had rejected the contract for the second time Thursday, will meet today to discuss the negotiating committee's new proposal. The Philharmonic's Governing Council will also meet today to discuss the orchestra's future.
The Philharmonic canceled its season after musicians turned down management's offer of a five-year contract with a 30 percent cumulative raise. Musicians had balked at clauses that affect the players' job security.
But on Friday, they offered their compromise.
``Since we have accepted the wages [in the rejected contract] and because there are just a few points to which we still haven't agreed, we propose to play and continue to negotiate,'' said Andrew Lewinter, co-chairman of the musicians' committee. ``At this point in the process, we feel someone has to step up to plate and do something that's positive to save this orchestra for this community.''
Lewinter said the players had contacted management Friday through an unidentified intermediary, who according to reliable sources is a former orchestra chairman, Martin Coyne. Alberto Ibargüen, publisher of The Herald and chairman of the Philharmonic's Governing Council, said the council would have to hear directly from the musicians.
``It sounds as if the musicians are saying, `We'll take the money and talk contract later,' '' Ibargüen said. ``But usually when you talk and play, you play at the existing [previous contractual] level.''
Musicians were receiving a base salary of $36,400 under the old contract. The new contract would have given them $38,200 this season, which represents a 7 percent raise.
But Ibargüen said he was uncertain the Philharmonic would be viable without a contract.
``How do we ask donors for dollars if we don't know the orchestra is going to be around?'' he said. ``Without a contract, the musicians could walk out during a rehearsal, for example, saying they don't like what's being offered. We'll have to discuss this directly with the players' representatives and the Governing Council before we can say anything further.''
Bitter words had followed the Philharmonic's decision Thursday to cancel the season. Musicians were upset by a proposal to more frequently rotate players on a peer review committee that determines whether musicians' skills have deteriorated. Musicians said they believed that change would make it easier to fire them.
At a news conference after players had rejected the contract a second time, Lewinter and his committee members nodded in agreement when their attorney, Leonard Leibowitz, said conductor James Judd's offer to donate his $250,000 salary to boost musicians' salaries was ``phony.'' The previous day Lewinter had called it ``magnanimous.''