Monday, July 11, 2011

More Union Matters

I've received a number of emails with regard to the post "Does the Musicians Union Have A Role in the Jewish Club Date Field?"

I'll be posting these for discussion. I am hoping for a productive discussion.

First up, Chaim Rosenblatt emails to tell us about the union article against him. It is in the May issue of Allegro, the union newsletter. It is the fourth article titled, "'Are You Ready for Us?' Organizing Matters" by Michael Donovan

Unfortunately, the union website is not setup to allow hot-linking to specific articles, but you can navigate to it from their homepage.

Here's the opening, but I strongly encourage reading the whole thing for the purposes of this discussion.
"We enjoy paying our musicians well above what unions tell musicians they are to be paid. We enjoy treating them right! Wisconsin agrees!"

That was a recent text message sent by Chaim Rosenblatt, owner of the EvanAl Orchestra, to Local 802 Representative Peter Voccola.

As we demonstrate and protest against EvanAl Orchestra and Chaim Rosenblatt Productions in order to get the Jewish club date field in order, it is interesting to note Rosenblatt’s choice of words.

While claiming to be paying above scale to his musicians, a claim that we know is a lie, Rosenblatt cited the recent upheaval in Wisconsin in order to press home a point that should not be lost on Local 802 members.

For informed union people, this particular method of attack from an employer who exploits his workers in order to undercut scales is both insulting and ridiculous at the same time....
I've offered Rosenblatt the opportunity to write a guest post on the subject, and I hope that he will. I'll give him a chance to do so, before addressing the specifics of this article.

At the same time, I am happy to post guest posts from other perspectives. Send 'em in, and I'll put 'em up on the blog.