Read Patty's letter below ... and you'll get inspired to write your own! If the question running through your head is: why should someone listen to me? Here's a true story: after months of PR by the musicians, working on major newspapers, trying to get them to carry the ASO's story ... a reporter just happens upon a blog, all on his own. A phone call was made, and the rest is history. This issue matters ... The ASOC matters as an organization ... it matters to the people of Atlanta what the WAC is trying to do to a major cultural institution ... and it should matter to major news outlets.
The musicians are holding out, they are not capitulating, and we are organized to help them! Now more than ever, chorus members and friends, writing to people and making them aware of what is going on is crucial. WAC has walked away from mediation, refusing to budge on the complement issue. If the WAC succeeds, there will be no ASO, and by extension, no ASOC. Do you want to stand behind a 60-piece pick-up orchestra? I don't ...
Dear Ms. Maddow,
Happy Friday! There is more going on in Atlanta than the misplacing of 40,000 voter registrations. There are multiple efforts to enrich the 1% at the expense of the 99% through union-busting.
Yesterday Atlantans participated in a rally in which locked-out musicians of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra joined with transit workers for the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (presently working without a contract) and a few fast-food workers to protest unfair anti-labor tactics. The instrumentalists are members of the American Federation of Musicians (AF of M); the transit workers are represented by ATU; the fast-food workers are fighting for a living wage and are currently unable to unionize due to the hostile labor environment in Georgia and other so-called “right to work” states across the country.
As Curtis Howard, President of the ATU Local 732 writes: 'Musicians and transit workers may not seem like natural allies, but we must work together to preserve quality arts and quality public transit. Because if the ASO and the MARTA Boards succeed in their plans, they will transform Atlanta from a premier city into a cradle of inequality.'
Here is a link to the full article, quoted in part above:
http://asocmember.blogspot.com/2014/10/join-aso-musicians-and-transit-workers.html
http://asocmember.blogspot.com/2014/10/join-aso-musicians-and-transit-workers.html
Fittingly, this demonstration was held just outside the Arts Center MARTA rail station. One point brought up yesterday was that MARTA, in a move calculated to improve its bottom line, has plans to outsource and privatize transportation of disabled people. Atlanta residents who currently work in the existing MARTA Mobility division will lose their jobs as a result.
What is happening in Atlanta today is part of a wave of anti-union activity that has been eroding workers’ rights and incomes over recent decades. The actions of Gov. Scott Walker (a/k/a the Wisconsin Weasel) are broadly parallel to what has been done by the Woodruff Arts Center (WAC), and possibly served as a model.
• When Gov. Walker took office, he gave tax cuts totaling about $2M to corporations; he announced that the state had a deficit of about $2M; he blamed this deficit on teachers, social workers, and fire fighters, saying their pensions were the cause, and proposed that to remedy the situation these workers take an effective pay cut and be deprived of their right to bargain collectively.
• WAC has announced a deficit, which it attributes to the Orchestra, of about $2M; it blames this deficit on the Orchestra musicians, saying their salaries are the cause, and proposes an effective pay cut. By locking the musicians out instead of allowing them to play concerts while negotiations take place, they are effectively depriving the musicians of the ability to bargain collectively.
• When Gov. Walker took office, he gave tax cuts totaling about $2M to corporations; he announced that the state had a deficit of about $2M; he blamed this deficit on teachers, social workers, and fire fighters, saying their pensions were the cause, and proposed that to remedy the situation these workers take an effective pay cut and be deprived of their right to bargain collectively.
• WAC has announced a deficit, which it attributes to the Orchestra, of about $2M; it blames this deficit on the Orchestra musicians, saying their salaries are the cause, and proposes an effective pay cut. By locking the musicians out instead of allowing them to play concerts while negotiations take place, they are effectively depriving the musicians of the ability to bargain collectively.
Please consider using your considerable talents as journalist and host to present Atlanta workers’ problems to the country. I will be happy to provide additional facts or put you in touch with people better-informed than myself.
All Americans are, have been, or will be affected by union-busting.
Best regards,
Patricia A. Nealon
It would have been more helpful if you'd kept it to local issues, especially regarding the ASO and not gone into national politics, which doesn't apply to Atlanta. Each situation is unique. Having once worked for several years for MARTA I have a different perspective. Regardless of that, the other point you omitted, is that MARTA employees are still getting paid while ASO players are not. Lets get the political side issues out of this and concentrate on the bullying of our Orchestra and its and our futures. On the other hand if Maddow can get more focus on the ASO issue, so much the better.
ReplyDeleteEd, I disagree there is no application to Atlanta or anywhere else bottom-line economics and commercialization obscures all else. As we have discussed, volume is more important than content. And as you recognize, the more national exposure and focus we can get, for whatever reason, the better.
ReplyDeleteI agree.
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