Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, Florida

Jacksonville Orchestra has a special place in our family's hearts. They have youth orchestras and that's where my children joined their first orchestras. Every year at Major Minor Concert at Jacoby Symphony Hall in May, kids perform side by side with Jacksonville Symphony Musicians. Our kids really enjoyed talking with the professionals before performances. Now, they are in big trouble. In November, their contract negotiation reached an impasse and the musicians are locked out. They detail on their initial stage of negotiation can be found on Playbill arts. According to its article, "Jim Van Vleck, chairman of the Symphony Association's board of directors, told the Times-Union that the orchestra has accumulated a debt of $3 million and run deficits in eight of the past ten years. In addition, this year the city of Jacksonville reduced its annual support for the orchestra by almost one-quarter, and other government funding is thought to be at risk as well........Management had presented what it said was its final offer to the musicians on Monday (Nov. 12). The five-year contract proposal included no pay raises for the first two years (with annual increases of 2.04%, 2.42% and 3.07% thereafter), a cut in management's pension contributions from the current 7% of salary to 3%, a reduction by half in paid personal leave (eight days to four, increasing to six in the final two years), elimination of extra pay for playing and maintaining a second instrument (e.g., flute and piccolo or bassoon and contrabassoon), and a sharp reduction in guaranteed days for part-time musicians.
The musicians' union — which had proposed a three-year contract to allow the Symphony administration and board time to stabilize the organization's finances — rejected management's offer, objecting in particular to the cuts in pension contributions and guaranteed work for part-timers. Union spokesperson Kevin Casseday told the Times-Union that the management proposal could reduce the annual compensation of some part-time players from $30,000 to less than $9,000.
The Jacksonville Symphony has 52 full-time musicians and roughly 15 part-timers. Base salary for the full-timers is $38,036, with the average being $43,660. Their season is 37 weeks annually, with 20 hours of rehearsals and performances per week."
Now, the musicians are threatened to be out of health insurance at the end of the year if the issue is not resolved. I found this article by Drew Mcmanus on his website which is really sad what the board members are talking, especially the comment (excerpt) made by Vice Chair Beames via his blackberry to Sally Pettegrew, JSO director of administration stating "I think we may start to see some crack in the dyke on this "only $x" issue, and the heartstrings of kids at Christmas with no presents certainly will have an impact."
I certainly hope they could reach an agreement soon for the sake of keeping the orchestra in Jacksonville community. I would hate to see it go extinct.