Hello all, At my school, (UNLV), I do a LOT of tuning for the Performing Arts Center auditorium, a large venue that is outside the confines of the university music department. I've worked with countless international orchestras ranging from the Moscow Philharmonic to the Australian Chamber Orchestra and ever major country in between. Other artists would include Yo-Yo Ma, Midori, James Galway, and Itzhak Perlman. Then come the contemporaries such as Jim Brickman, George Winston, Wynton Marsalis, Manhattan Transfer, Herbie Hancock, and the list goes on. Just for fun I'll throw in the touring Broadway shows and artists such as Bernadette Peters, Rita Moreno, Betty Buckley, and the list continues to go on. This facility is technically not covered in my job description with the exception of events directly connected to the music department. This has been bothering me for years and after endless wrangling with the hall administrator dangling invisible carrots and a treasure chest of excuses, I finally decided I would have to go above and beyond. I got the chair to pull out my contract and it clearly indicates that my responsibilities are within the confines of the department. It says nothing about being responsible for touring orchestras and concerts featuring pop stars. I made an extensive list of these events I've tuned for and decided to arrange a little meeting with the fine arts dean. Alas! He was in a very good mood, leaned back in his chair, and with a wink told me that I was absolutely correct! I was indeed being ripped off for work I wasn't responsible for. He immediately shot off a email to the hall administrator, (I could just visualize his red glowing anger face), saying that I was entitled to compensation and the situation needed to be rectified. A meeting will be arranged with the administrator and the chair soon to finalize how this will work. I think about the eleven and a half years that have gone by and what probably amounts to tens of thousands of dollars that I should have been paid. I would like to inquire to those who are in a similar situation and compensated for events outside of your department, how does your arrangement work? Are you independently contracted with the hall or is there supplemental pay added to your payroll? How much are you compensated for doing a concert tuning? If you are required to be on standby how much do you charge for that? Is there an extra charge for weekends? I need to have some ammunition locked and loaded that I can present them that provides a fair deal that I can live with while at the same time does not look like I'm trying to take advantage. I have already talked with a few of you directly and have left some phone messages for others. I think it would be great to hear from a large pool of you. Part of me feels like skipping around singing "Zippity Doo Da", yet the other part is cautious as to whether the jerky administrator will try to throw a few shovels of sand into the gears. He's actually a pretty nice guy, loves to talk about baseball, but when it comes to this topic he's been a real turd. Please contact me directly at rrg at unlv.nevada.edu No need to get into much detail, I mostly just need the above inquiry. Thanks in advance, Rob Goodale, RPT Las Vegas, NV -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20100807/bec8c277/attachment.htm>
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