“Mayor Bill Peduto and Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald will meet with Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra management and musicians this week in an effort to mediate the bruising labor dispute at Heinz Hall,” write Elizabeth Bloom and Adam Smeltz in Tuesday’s (10/25) Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “Mr. Peduto said, ‘Sometimes you need to have somebody who listens to each side and communicates.’ Representatives of the musicians, who have been on strike since Sept. 30, will meet with the mayor and county executive on Wednesday, bassist and orchestra committee chairman Micah Howard said. ‘The fact that our mayor and the county executive both have enough interest to want to meet with us shows they want to help us find a solution, and it’d be great if they could help us do that,’ Mr. Howard said. Members of symphony management [including several board members] will meet with Mr. Peduto and Mr. Fitzgerald on Thursday, symphony president and CEO Melia Tourangeau said.… For the first time since the strike began, the two sides plan to meet with federal mediators on Friday and Saturday.… They also have agreed to hire an outside expert, paid for by both parties, who will conduct an independent analysis of the organization’s finances.”
Posted October 27, 2016
