In Tuesday’s (3/5) Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky), Elizabeth Kramer writes, “The Louisville Orchestra has reached a three-year contract agreement with its musicians that freezes their wages for the next two years. The agreement, announced Tuesday, is ‘economically painful,’ said Kim Tichenor, chair of the musicians’ orchestra committee and one of the violinists. ‘We have taken some pretty big cuts here; however, we are showing faith in the new board and its leadership as well as the new management,’ Tichenor said. ‘We feel strongly that they’ll be able to turn this organization around.’ … The new agreement, which was reached last weekend, keeps the musicians’ wages at the level set in the current contract reached last April—$925 a week. Wages would rise 3 percent during the contract’s third year. … ‘The people here really came together and under difficult circumstances,’ said consultant Peter Pastreich, whom the orchestra and the musicians hired to help the two sides reach an agreement by this month. Under Pastreich’s advice, the board recently added more members, including Brown-Forman Corp. vice chairman Jim Welch, who is set to become the board’s president in May. It also brought in an interim chief executive officer, David Hyslop, after Robert Birman announced his resignation, which took effect Feb. 1.” The new contract takes effect June 1.
Posted March 6, 2013
