With the clock counting down to the Minnesota Orchestra’s Sept. 15 deadline to reach an accord in a labor dispute, the orchestra’s board made a new proposal to the musicians on Thursday in the hopes of jump-starting the stalled mediation process.
The board’s proposal called for the players to return to work on Sept. 30 and to work for two months under their old contract. Then, if no new agreement is reached, the musicians would work for the next two years with their base pay cut by nearly a quarter. (Last year, the musicians rejected a proposal that would have cut their base pay by roughly a third, leading management to lock out the performers.)
The musicians had favored a proposal that was put forward earlier this summer by an independent mediator. That proposal, which management rejected, would have brought the players back to work for two months under their old contract and then for two more months at a six percent pay cut while the two sides negotiate. Musicians favored that proposal because it would have allowed the orchestra to play two Carnegie Hall concerts in November and retain the orchestra’s music director, Osmo Vanska, who has threatened to quit if those concerts are canceled. But management worried that the short-term deal would widen the orchestra’s deficit but would not allow them to guarantee a full season to subscribers.
The board said that its latest proposal would still leave the orchestra with a $2.2 million deficit. “Our aim was to eliminate our deficit entirely,’’ Jon Campbell, the chairman of the board, said in a statement, “but the board has put forward this compromise in the hopes of getting musicians back on stage and audiences back in Orchestra Hall in time to launch a new season.â€
Representatives for the musicians did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
