{"id":3620,"date":"2009-12-15T23:25:04","date_gmt":"2009-12-16T07:25:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/?p=3620"},"modified":"2009-12-16T00:02:22","modified_gmt":"2009-12-16T08:02:22","slug":"rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/12\/15\/rules\/","title":{"rendered":"rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning I made a comment about a scheduling issue that came up this week – we had two rehearsals for a concert that takes place next Monday, with the dress rehearsal taking place on Monday morning.\u00a0 No other orchestral services take place in the intervening time period.\u00a0 I said that this seemed very silly to me.\u00a0 Almost immediately the response from another member of the organization was “well, if you<\/em> would change your<\/em> rules, then we could have the rehearsals closer to the concert”.\u00a0 Perhaps, but we the musicians don’t dictate the contract to management, that’s why the process of making a new contract is called negotiation.<\/p>\n

An orchestra’s contract is often a reflection of past abuses and its attempts to prevent them from ever happening again.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don’t really like some of the strange and seemingly arbitrary work rules that make up a large portion of our contract, but the fact is, an orchestra’s contract (or CBA – collective bargaining agreement) is often a reflection of past abuses and its attempts to prevent them from ever happening again.\u00a0 We have a competent, hard-working management team in place now, with a president who has demonstrated her good faith and respect time and time again – but it wasn’t ever thus.<\/p>\n

Scheduling issues are especially important to members of orchestras – particularly those orchestras which don’t provide sufficient compensation.\u00a0 Often, musicians will teach extensive private studios to close the income gap, or teach at a local college or university, or take part-time work outside of music, or sell real estate – the list goes on and on.\u00a0 Teaching privately or in a college setting requires stable periods of free time that you can count on.<\/p>\n

Here’s an example: Let’s say you have no scheduling restrictions in your CBA.\u00a0 On Monday, you get an email from your personnel manager explaining that a pops show was able to make a date in town for Wednesday and the management has hired the show.\u00a0 There will be two rehearsals the day of the show and a concert Wednesday night.\u00a0 You had ten students lined up for lessons on Wednesday afternoon and evening.\u00a0 Now you’ve got to call them all up and reschedule them to other days – some students might not be able to reschedule and you’ve lost a substantial amount of income for that week.\u00a0 If this happens more than a couple times a year, you’ll start to see your student count start to decline as their parents head for a more stable and reliable teaching environment.<\/p>\n

As you can no doubt guess, this could quickly snowball into a disaster for the musicians.\u00a0 How to resolve this?\u00a0 Make sure that adequate advanced notice is given for schedule changes, and ensure that there is one inviolate day off in each work week.<\/p>\n

The problem comes when you start adding other restrictions or conditions to the mix.\u00a0 As each new CBA gets negotiated, the layers of rules start piling up like sediments on the ocean floor, and some unintended consequences can ensue.\u00a0 An adage in contract negotiating circles says that what is given up is never regained, and so the work rules continue to add up – for if salaries and benefits might be lost, at least adequate workplace protections might be retained as some sort of counterbalance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning I made a comment about a scheduling issue that came up this week – we had two rehearsals for a concert that takes place next Monday, with the dress rehearsal taking place on Monday morning.\u00a0 No other orchestral services take place in the intervening time period.\u00a0 I said that this seemed very silly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[186,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-labor-issues","category-the-orchestra-world"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/sa8kC-rules","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6845,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2011\/08\/31\/carlos-kalmar-extends-contract-until-2015\/","url_meta":{"origin":3620,"position":0},"title":"carlos kalmar extends contract until 2015","author":"Charles Noble","date":"August 31, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"At the start of most rehearsals, our personnel manager, Martha Warrington, stands up and gives us a heads up on information that we need to know. 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