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Attention News directors and Arts & Entertainment columnists. For immediate release. MSO: The musicians respond to the administration Montreal, July 29 2005 -- The press release sent out by the MSO's administration on July 28th regarding the reasons for the suspension of negotiations requires a firm and complete answer, according to the chairman of the musicians' negotiating committee, Jean-Marc Leclerc. As is the administration's longstanding habit, it manipulates facts and statistics to suit its purposes. For example, it continues to insist that the musicians work only 20 hours a week, a total that reflects the length of time spent in collective rehearsal and in concerts. In so doing, the administration completely omits the hours of personal practice and preparation that musicians must perform, despite both M. Bouchard and Mme. Careau having recognized that fact in a meeting with musicians' representatives in October of 2004. The administration's statement is as absurd and as great a misrepresentation of the musicians' actual workload as saying that a teacher's workload is limited to the time spent in the classroom. Working Conditions Jean-Marc Leclerc deplores just as profoundly the MSO administration's allegation that the musicians refused to honour verbal agreements taken in June regarding working condition clauses. On the 7th and 10th of June, the musicians presented a "global proposal" on all of the unsettled working conditions. They thus added another 30 concessions to the 40 already signed in the administration's favour. On the 21st of June the MSO administration responded by accepting only those concessions that perfectly answered their demands; on the 29th of the June the musicians reminded them that their proposal was global and, not having been accepted in its entirety, they were withdrawing it from the table. No agreement was ever reached on those matters, either verbally or otherwise. The collective agreements of all major North American orchestras limit the repertoire, sometimes exclusively, that can be rehearsed on tour. Contrary to the administration's claim, the existing agreement is already one of the most permissive with regards to the content of those rehearsals. The musicians' global proposal from early June made it even more flexible. This was still not enough for the administration. The same applies for the two weekly days off while the orchestra is in Montreal. On tour, the administration is already able to defer one of those days off until after the end of the tour for any reason. It continues to demand that the musicians renounce, pure and simple, that day off to travel. The musicians' global proposal from the month of June offered to write into the agreement what is already common practice, namely delaying the time of the break in a rehearsal to permit the uninterrupted run-through of a work lasting longer than 90 minutes. This also the administration refused. Recordings The musicians have already expressed numerous times in the negotiations their awareness of the problems related to recording, which remain a fundamental method of spreading the MSO name, in an evolving and complex industry. It took eight years of discussions for the Philadelphia Orchestra, for example, to resolve the recording problems. On the 8th of July, the MSO administration presented a proposal which was simplistic, imprecise, incomplete and altogether botched in several areas. The musicians pointed out many of these gaps on July 27th. The next day, the administration chose to end the discussions. Monetary Clauses The musicians' current pay, according to the collective agreement and since 2001, is roughly $61,000 a year, while they must bear the costs of buying, maintaining, and insuring their instruments and their clothing, for an average of $15,000 annually. Any amount over $61,000 comes at the sole discretion of the administration through individual contracts. The administration's most recent offer looks at first glance like a 1.2% pay hike after 4 years without a raise. This is accompanied by a reduction in the number of paid weeks from 46 to 44 for the 2005-2006 season. Result: the musicians would earn 3.2% less than they earned in the 2001-2002 season! As for the administration's salary offer, while they claim it to be 8% over five years, in fact it is over seven years. The current collective agreement expired August 31, 2003 and the MSO administration demands that the next one expire August 31, 2010. Finally, the MSO administration cites its budgetary constraints. What is disappointing is that the only solution that they have considered up until now to deal with those constraints is to make the musicians bear the entire weight. The administration's five-year plan, completed in 2003, clearly stated its principal goal as being that of controlling the "salary mass" of the musicians. Meanwhile, the administration continues to refuse musicians' demands which would not cost one penny more. This is the case, for example, in the access to early or progressive retirement, as well as the possibility of unpaid leave for family or parental reasons identical to those set out in the Labour Standards Law. Does the future of the institution that is the MSO, as we know it, really depend on treating the musicians worse than required by the Labour Standards Law?