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As spring 2020 approached, Local 72-147 was preparing for one of the busiest negotiating seasons in many years, with the musicians of the Dallas and Fort Worth Symphonies, the Dallas Opera Orchestra, East Texas Symphony and Dallas Summer Musicals all preparing to negotiate successor agreements with their managements. With the outbreak of COVID-19 creating a shutdown of public gatherings and stay-at-home orders for individuals across DFW, these musicians found themselves with current performance seasons shuttered. Previously unimaginable, force majeure provisions were invoked by some employers, and others through application for SBA PPP loans made available through the CARES Act, passed on March

Call your senators at 844-551-6921 and urge them to reject the Grassley-Alexander proposal, which would harm the Butch Lewis Act. Tell them to support legislation that will provide retirees with their hard-earned benefits and stabilize the multiemployer pension system overall. Anything less is unacceptable.

from Pension Fund Notes
December 6, 2019

When the Trustees apply to reduce benefits to try to save the AFM-EPF, some participants have certain protections under current law. If the benefit reduction is approved, benefit payments will not be reduced until January 1, 2021.

A longstanding Holiday tradition in DFW made special by the performances of DFW musicians – and supported by Music Performance Trust Fund – is the annual Christmas Pageant held for the residents at the Denton State Supported Living Center.

After months of refusing to negotiate the very changes in the Master Agreement between Las Colinas Symhony Orchestra (LCSO) and Local 72-147 requested by the LCSO initially in April 2019, LCSO Management finally agreed to meet with the Union on October 30 nearly three weeks after the Union forwarded a proposal to Management to settle all disputes. This was an effort to end a lockout created by Management’s refusal to acknowledge the signed contracts of the Winds, Brass, Percussion, Harp and Keyboard (WBPHK) players last September.

At the October 30 meeting, Management made a verbal counter proposal to the Union’s offer, but fell short of honoring these musicians’ signed contracts.

Following this meeting, the Union delivered a counter proposal to Management on 1 November.

In the subsequent meeting which took place on November 7, Management failed provide a counter proposal for settlement.

from Pension Fund Notes
September 19, 2019

As we informed participants in May, the Trustees and the Fund’s advisors are preparing an application to the U.S. Treasury Department to reduce benefits under the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act (MPRA). These benefit reductions are necessary to prevent the AFM-EPF from running out of money to pay benefits in the future. By putting the Fund on stronger financial footing, we are helping to ensure that the Fund will be around to pay benefits to current and future retirees for decades to come.