“After negotiating for three months beyond the expiration of their last contract, the musicians and management of the New York Philharmonic reached a labor agreement on Thursday that guarantees the players what the orchestra described as ‘modest wage increases’ in each of the contract’s four years,” writes Allan Kozinn in Friday’s (12/13) New York Times. Management and the musicians “have agreed not to discuss the terms of the agreement, which is retroactive to Sept. 20, 2013, and runs through Sept. 20, 2017. But the orchestra offered a broad description. Beyond the modest salary increases, an orchestra spokeswoman, Katherine Johnson, said, the contract provides for ‘adjustments to health care that continue a high level of coverage but provide for musician contributions,’ as well as ‘maintenance of current pension benefit levels for the first three years.’ The pension level was capped at $70,000 a year per player during the last negotiations, in 2012. Pension benefit levels for the final year of the contract will be negotiated later. ‘In these times of economic uncertainty, it was important to achieve a sense of stability…,’ Dawn Hannay, a violist in the orchestra, and the chair of its negotiating committee, said in a statement released jointly by the union and the orchestra.”
Posted December 16, 2013
