Here is my Saturday December 5, 2009, Chicago Sun-Times news story on the ratification Friday afternoon of a new three-year contract by the Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra.
Shows -- and three seasons -- go on as Lyric Opera musicians ratify new contract
By ANDREW PATNER
In the end it was like a marriage where two partners quarrel and then make up. And it wasn’t the first occasion that a couple fought over money in tough times, either.
Late Friday afternoon, the 76 members of the Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra approved a new three-year contract with the opera company, just a day before their union said they would strike the company over wages. The vote was “as close to unanimous as you can get,” according to a negotiator.
Lyric management had wanted concessions in salary and season length. Players had wanted to give some pay back now but make some of it back in future seasons. Management wanted to go season by season, perhaps up to two years ahead. Players wanted to lock in an agreement for four years.
In the end, neither side wanted to shut the season down, especially at the scheduled opening of a beloved and light-hearted operetta, Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow, which launches its run Saturday night at 7:30 p.m.
“They recognized what we are facing,” said Lyric general director William Mason. “We acknowledged that and there was compromise.”
The deal calls for a freeze on pay and a 26-week season for 2009-10. It then allows for a 4 percent increase in each of the following two years but offsets the increases with a cut to 24 work weeks each of those seasons. Health insurance agreements and other monetary benefits remain unchanged.
“We don’t exist in a vacuum,” said Chicago Federation of Musicians president Gary Matts. “We always hope to better our lot -- our members have earned that. But we also know that without the people who raise and donate money in Chicago there would not be a Lyric Opera or a Chicago Symphony Orchestra. We’re appreciative of each other.”
The Bucksbaum Family Lyric Opera Radio Broadcasts over Chicago’s WFMT-FM and the WFMT Radio Network, along with their broadcast income for players, are also guaranteed for the length of the new contract. And Mason said that additional administrative savings would be achieved in Lyric’s next fiscal year, beginning May 1, 2010.
In keeping with the Viennese party atmosphere of The Merry Widow, negotiators even broke out champagne and toasted each other after reaching agreement Thursday just before midnight.
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