Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2019-06-26 19:02
DougR wrote:
> "Doubling down" is a very kind way to put what the BSO
> management is doing. They are going after all the musicians'
> livelihoods proactively, meaning cancelling bedrock protections
> (disability and life insurance, which SHOULD remain in place
> during any sort of negotiation, unless you're trying to
> actively encourage current musicians to leave the orchestra).
> The naked threat here is management cancelling or curtailing
> anything they can to instill terror in the musicians.
>
It may seem like quibbling over semantics, but I suspect what's actually happening is that management is not making the premium payments for the insurance coverage rather than actively "cancelling" them. Medical insurance premiums are paid monthly. Life insurance may be paid monthly, quarterly or semi-annually. If management doesn't make the payments, the insurance company cancels the policy. The effect, of course, is exactly the same - the musicians lose their life and medical insurance coverage. But it occurs to me that the insurance companies could prevent this by continuing to cover the musicians in the expectation that the policies would restored and unpaid premiums might even be made up once (if) a new contract is agreed to.
Somehow I never hear of insurance companies' being willing to go this extra mile to support workers.
> I think at this point it's a race between the BSO management's
> cruelty (I'll use the word, you may disagree) on the one hand,
> and community outrage on the other. The community (the
> governor, state legislators, and community leaders) need to be
> mobilized to hold the BSO management to some sort of
> accountability for the wholesale abandonment of their duty to
> maintain the orchestra in any qualitatively meaningful form
I've never understood what the orchestra boards in these contract disputes are trying to accomplish. They aren't meant to be profit-generating institutions. The boards' role is, or is supposed to be, to maintain the quality of the orchestra. How destroying it instead fulfills their core purpose has always been beyond me. They're clearly throwing the baby out with the bath water. Why are they on these boards in the first place?
Karl
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