Driving for Dollars

Today I would like to start with a few comments about health insurance.

The Los Angeles musicians do have access to a plan provided through their local union, and it’s a very good plan. It’s been in place for about 30 years. There are qualification standards, and you do need to work enough under union contracts with health and welfare provisions (which must be negotiated with the employer) each year to qualify. If musicians are looking to create some sort of union group insurance plan, they will need to work with their local unions and be willing to pay higher premiums for several years just to get things started. High premiums are discouraging, to be sure, but health care coverage probably won’t get cheaper in the near future, so there’s probably no time like the present to get one started.

Paid sick leave is generally not offered in any of the orchestra contracts I work with. More importantly for my colleagues and myself though, is that there usually is not an excused absence provision, once the “bailout window” has closed, except for sick, and that’s almost always unpaid. I do know of several instances where musicians have abused the policy and called in sick to take another job for the day, and in one instance a musician got “caught” and was fired. Not for missing the rehearsal, but for employee dishonesty.

Scheduling is always a challenge. The practice in most orchestras is that a musician must play all rehearsals offered in connection with the concert set. Musicians can cancel out on the work provided it is with sufficient notice, but if the musician can do all but one rehearsal he or she must either turn down all the work for that set or decline the work with the conflicting schedule. The notice requirement is usually 2 weeks (for some orchestras 3 weeks). I call it the “bailout window,” and once it closes one is committed to the work unless something drastic happens. It is not unusual to be called for other work that may pay more or in other ways be more attractive after the bailout window closes, and this has happened to me often over the years. This creates a lot of frustration – and temptation – for the musician.

Recently the orchestra managements have started to take an aggressive stance on matters of absenteeism. Within the last year 2 musicians that I personally know were fired and another severely disciplined for unexcused absences.