Doing committee work is one of the best ways to make concrete change in your union and community. In fact, all of the most important things that your union accomplishes happen due to the work of member committees. Here’s everything that Local 99 committees do. (Spoiler alert: at the end you will be encouraged to join one.)
Elected Committees
Local 99 has one elected committee, the Executive Board, made up of eight members. Three of them (President, Vice President, and Secretary-Treasurer) are elected to three-year terms, the other five (Executive Officers) are elected to two-year terms. This committee meets twice a month and supervises the administration of the Local: they approve 1) new members, 2) expenditures, 3) changes to Local policies, 4) collective bargaining agreements negotiated by Local members, 5) recommendations from other committees that don’t need to go to the full membership, and much more.
The three tenured orchestras of Local 99 members—the Oregon Symphony, Portland Opera, and Oregon Ballet Theatre—have committees specific to them (see below), elected from among their ranks to represent them; most of the committees have duties and capacities thanks to contractual language negotiated by the musicians with their employers.
The other Local 99 collective bargaining agreements (you can see the list here) are negotiated by committees appointed by the President from musicians who have worked under that contract. (If no one volunteers, the contract is negotiated by Local 99 staff.)
Appointed Committees
Local 99 has many different committees of members focused on different aspects of our local. With the exception of the Finance Committee, they are all appointed by the President.
There are four Standing Committees specified in our bylaws:
Law & Legislative: When members or committees propose resolutions or bylaw amendments, this committee examines them, puts them in proper wording if necessary, looks to see whether they conflict with any existing bylaws, and reports their findings to membership.
Finance: This committee is appointed by the Executive Committee, and is in charge of overseeing the Local’s finances—auditing our books, reviewing our budget, recommending investments, and reporting on any resolutions or amendments that would have significant impact on the Local’s finances.
Price List: This committee studies our scale book and submits recommendations for changes at the June General Meeting.
Election: If/when we have an election, the President appoints an Elections Committee to oversee all details of it.
In addition, Local 99 currently has seven other committees doing work. The Scholarship Committee reviews and approves applications from members for our Scholarship Fund. The Relief Fund Committee does the same for our Emergency Relief Fund. Our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, & Accessibility Committee examines the practices of the Local through a DEIA lens. The Public Relations Committee looks at how we can make our Local look better externally, including our website, our building, our branding, etc. The TEMPO Committee coördinates Local 99 connections to TEMPO, the AFM’s political action committee; the Political Engagement Committee manages the Local’s local political involvement, identifying ballot measures and candidates that are important for the Local to support, administering our candidate questionnaires, and making recommendations to our Executive Committee and general membership. And finally, the Fair Trade Music Committee works on improving the club scene in town (and is the one committee open to non-members).
Pay for committees
Most of the committees are done by volunteers, but there are a few who are paid:
- The Executive Committee (with the exception of the President and the Secretary-Treasurer, who are salaried) are paid $50/meeting
- The Audition Committees of the Oregon Symphony, Portland Opera, and Oregon Ballet Theatre are paid by their respective management at rates negotiated in their collective bargaining agreements (~$220/day for the Symphony, ~$30/hr for Opera, and ~$160/day for Ballet)
- The Election Committee is paid at whatever the Casual scale rate is at the time, not to exceed 3 hours.
You are certainly welcome on any of these committees—there is always room for a member who wants to serve—but committees that are actively looking for new members are the Finance Committee, the Price List Committee, and the Fair Trade Music Committee. If you are interested, please email our President.
“How do I know which committee to join?!”
If you want to serve on a committee but don’t know which one to choose, you are welcome to call our Local 99 President or Secretary-Treasurer—they would be happy to chat about how you could best slot in to our existing committees. But here are some tips:
- If you played a union scale gig, noticed that you didn’t get any holiday pay for working on Veteran’s Day, and think that should be changed, you should check out the Price List Committee!
- If you would love to rep Local 99 out and about and wish we had a sweet Local 99 hoodie, you should join the Public Relations Committee!
- If you want to make sure all of your union siblings know about how great (or terrible) your local elected official is, you should join the Political Engagement Committee!
Finally, if you have an issue that you care about, but it doesn’t fit into any of our existing committees, get a couple of other interested members together and email our President—he can appoint a new committee and you can be the chair!
Almost everything that we do as a union goes through a committee or three, so if you care about the direction we take, you have control—you just have to speak up!
Committees of our union’s tenured orchestras
Oregon Symphony
– Orchestra Committee: official representatives of the orchestra both to management and to the union as a whole, serves as union stewards on the job site, manages the finances of the players’ association, calls orchestra meetings, appoints any subcommittees as needed.
21-22 Orchestra Committee: James Shields, Carin Miller Packwood, Michael Roberts, Trevor Fitzpatrick (c), Zach Galatis
– Contract Committee: receives, creates, reviews, and develops ideas for the contract, and negotiates it in contract years.
– Artistic Advisory Committee: meets with management regularly to discuss and advise the artistic decisions made by the organization.
– Safety Committee: with equal number of management representatives, responsible for studying and recommending safety standards and procedure (e.g. noise levels, lighting, stage seating, theater rigging).
– Scheduling Advisory Committee: consults with management on scheduling and approves management scheduling requests (or recommends decisions to full orchestra).
– Electronic Media Committee: consults with management on any recording project and approves related management requests.
– Audition Committees: These committees are not elected, but rather appointed by the Orchestra Committee for each specific audition. They are the auditors and are responsible for approving a candidate or candidates for hiring (the Music Director makes a final decision from the list of approved musicians, if any).
– Audition Task Force Committee: created to review and modify the audition process, especially as it relates to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Portland Opera
– Orchestra Committee: represents the musicians with both management and the union as a whole, and serves as the Negotiating Committee in contract negotiation years.
21-22 Orchestra Committee: Shauna Keyes (c), Jen Harrison, Casey Bozell, Will Reno, Dylan Rieck
– Artistic Advisory Committee: meets with management regularly to discuss and advise the artistic decisions made by the organization.
– Audition Committees: created for each audition.
Oregon Ballet Theatre
– Orchestra Committee: represents the musicians with both management and the union as a whole, and serves as the Negotiating Committee in contract negotiation years.
21-22 Orchestra Committee: Louis DeMartino (c), Jennifer Estrin, Kelly Gronli, Gordon Rencher, Alan Juza
– Audition Committees: created for each audition.