Black Helicopters invade 1501

There have been some really good conspiracies theories floating around the orchestra world to account for the rash of labor disputes and work stopppages in our business. But tHe cOMMITTEe has sprinted so far ahead of the pack with their latest that they are, quite literally, uncatchable for the iStupid Award for 2012:

When Ray Hair was running as the RMA surrogate at the last AFM convention we at the COMMITTEE clearly warned you what would happen if the RMA got control of the AFM.

We are now seeing the result and the chickens coming home to roost are huge indeed,.. Everything for the RMA and everyone else neglected or shoved aside.

Orchestra after Orchestra paying the price for a federation only concerned with the welfare of a handful of recording musicians interests. Lock-outs and losses of seasons from faulty negotiations, or in the case of Los Angeles corrupt ones, the results favorable only to the orchestras stuffed with RMA members, be they the Pasadena Symphony or the LAO (Los Angeles Opera).

So - Minnesota and the SPCO and Atlanta and Indianapolis and Jacksonville and Spokane are not the fault of the League of American Orchestras, or greedy boards, or an anti-union plot. It's the RMA's fault.

Wow. Just wow.

I will say that the cOMMITTEe has done me a service with this particular bit of lunacy. I have friends in the RMA, and I trust them. But, if I were to take the cOMMITTEe's accusations at face value, I might be a little uneasy. Fortunately I learned a long time ago that the best measure of the veracity of a source when discussing issues in which I don't have a deep background is how accurate they are in covering an issue I really do understand. If there's one thing I do understand, it's how the AFM, its locals, and orchestra committees interact when negotiating labor agreements. And the idea that the current unpleasant is caused by "faulty negotiations" due to the AFM's lack of interest in any cause other than making RMA members as rich as Mitt Romney is as clinically insane an idea as any outside the writings of Krafft-Ebing.

Good job, cOMMITTEe. Enjoy your award.

 

 

Comments

[Phil Ayling]

As a recording musician, I confess to not knowing a great deal about symphonic labor issues, though Robert and others have been very helpful in educating me. I wish I was free to more fully explain how RMA maintains control over North American orchestra negotiations, but it seemed like the next logical thing to do after our hugely successful venture of hiding weapons of mass destruction throughout Irag.