In Sunday’s (1/23) Detroit Free Press, Mark Stryker reports, “Detroit Symphony Orchestra musicians submitted a new proposal to management Saturday, adding yet another twist to negotiations to end the bitter 16-week strike. The new offer adhered to the three-year, $36 million compromise framework put forward in December by U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm, said Gordon Stump, president of the Detroit Federation of Musicians. The proposal may represent a turning point in negotiations. Talks between management and musicians appeared to be in jeopardy Saturday morning, when management broke a mutually agreed-upon news blackout to claim that the players had yet to provide a true three-year, $36-million proposal, which they had previously endorsed. Instead, management said the musicians’ offer squeezed $36 million into 32 months—in effect a demand to be paid for time on strike—and that projected over three years the proposal would actually cost $40.1 million. … But Saturday’s fresh proposal by the musicians could reset the playing field. ‘We’ll put it through our cost models, and if it does meet $36 million over 36 months, we’ll quickly resume talks,’ said DSO executive vice president Paul Hogle.”
Posted January 24, 2011
