Israel orchestra threatens its musicians
OrchestrasThe board of the Israel Chamber Orchestra, which sacked its music director Ariel Zuckermann without cause last week, has now told the musicians they will face disciplinary action or dismissal if they do not turn up to a mandatory meeting.
The language used by this faceless management is extraordinarily aggressive.
Shut down this orchestra once and for all, a better one will be eventually rebuilt with young talented musicians. There is no justification for such a low level orchestra.
The language and tone of the letter to the musicians is outrageous, unacceptable and entirely unprecedented in labor relations let alone in an organization such as an orchestra. I hope the musicians will not be intimidated by such brutal conduct and, regardless of the reasons for sacking the MD (I have no idea why he was sacked but this clearly was surprising as he seemed to revitalize the orchestra), the person/s behind the letter should be sacked with disgrace.
Working in Israel is a nightmare. The level of verbal aggression is higher than everywhere else.
can someone translate this?
Google Translate is pretty impressive nowadays. No wonder folks are worried about AI making them redundant…
The letter is certainly aggressive, though I’ve seen worse in the context of a labour dispute. This organization clearly has some issues to deal with.
…
Greetings to the orchestra players,
In recent days we have witnessed serious and unacceptable behavior on the part of the orchestra’s players. In this framework, the orchestra has to deal with defamation from home, the disruption of normal conduct and damage to its good name in a variety of media.
This behavior of yours is completely contrary to your duties as employees and musicians and causes real damage to the orchestra.
We chose to reach out to you and try to have an open dialogue with you, but unfortunately, in a very serious way, you chose to ignore our letter and today you even went against a clear directive from the executive committee to come to the meeting – and you announced as a group that you would not come to the meeting with the director general of the orchestra and the chairman of the executive committee.
Unfortunately, we are unable to continue to condone this unacceptable behavior and therefore, we would like to clarify herewith that you are required to immediately stop defaming the name of the orchestra and are also required to act in accordance with the directives of the executive committee in full (including attending meetings called by the management).
As long as you choose not to do so and continue in the line you took last week, we will be forced to take personal disciplinary measures against the relevant employees.
We hope that you will see this warning letter as an opportunity for change and stop the wild behavior you have engaged in in recent days.
Sincerely,
The Executive Committee, the Israel Chamber Orchestra
To be fair there are two sides to every story. What was the “slander” that occurred in various media last week that the letter references, and by whom? If I read it correctly, management DID make an effort to establish a dialog with the musicians in question. A translation of the letter would certainly be helpful.
The orchestra should simply resign en masse and re-form themselves under a new name, and be self-managed.
There must be someone here who knows why management decided fire their beloved music director. Please share. This whole story doesn’t make sense without all the facts
I agree. At a glance it reminds me of former culture minister Miri Regev (typical Bibi miscasting), but there must be a real story no one is telling. Such scoops are also common in Israel.
I’m surprised there’s no translation of the letter in the article. It’s not that aggressive, just strict, and the letter itself asks for cooperation, not submission. What is said in reality could be very different, but the letter seems serious but not overboard.
I know hardly anything about Israeli labor law, but I’d be surprised if this letter didn’t contain multiple violations of same.