What is the status of the collective bargaining negotiations between EMF and its faculty, represented by American Federation of Musicians (AFM), local 342?

Negotiations are ongoing and have been since January 2024, supported by Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services professionals.

Since early in the negotiation process, EMF has proposed a number of meaningful, conciliatory offers to address the faculty’s demands. The union has rejected all of them with almost no concession.

On February 24, after more than 80 hours of face-to-face meetings with union representatives, the bargaining committee representing the faculty rejected EMF’s last, best, and final offer. This strong offer proposed a substantial increase in faculty compensation with a package that exceeds that of professional musicians in this area, or almost $90,000 on an annualized basis. Given the union’s swift rejection of the offer and apparent stalemate in negotiations, the board determined it impossible to go forward as usual with the 2025 Festival.

On March 4, the union filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) over EMF’s decision to cancel the 2025 Festival. EMF is responding to this unsubstantiated complaint. It is unclear how long it will take for the NLRB to review.

Why did EMF cancel the 2025 Festival?

Without an AFM collective bargaining agreement in place and recognizing the short time frame left to complete festival planning and implementation, the EMF board determined that it is not possible to host the 2025 Festival as planned or offer the festival experience that student musicians and the community deserve.

Once the faculty refused the best offer EMF could make, EMF was unable to confirm student enrollment, guest artist participation, or contracts for staff and operational/organizational needs. Delaying the decision any longer would have hampered the students’ ability to look at other programs. Accepting applications would have been an obligation to the students that EMF could not have met if the faculty refused to attend this year. Having students on campus without a dedicated faculty was a risk that EMF could not take.

Why are negotiations taking so long?

The collective bargaining process can be complex and lengthy, as in this case. Usually, it involves healthy, give-and-take negotiation that progresses to a mutually satisfactory agreement for all stakeholders. We are hopeful that can still happen.

However, the board and the faculty have a fundamental disagreement about the purpose of EMF, making it difficult to negotiate productively.

• Shelly Morgenstern, the founder of EMF, could not have been clearer in the organization’s charter, governing documents, and other public statements, including even in his obituary, that EMF’s purpose, first and foremost, is to provide music education for young people. Management and the board take that purpose and Shelly’s intent to heart. 

• Over the years, the mission has seemingly drifted beyond its original scope, as sometimes happens in nonprofit organizations. The faculty now want to believe that EMF’s purpose, first and foremost, is to always field a fully professional orchestra. That’s simply not true, especially if doing so limits the opportunity for well-deserving, talented students to participate in orchestra performances. Consistently, alumni tell us that performing alongside their teachers and professional musicians is a life-changing experience and a highlight of the program for them.

It might have been easier and faster had the board thrown up its hands, shirked its fiduciary responsibility, and agreed to the terms of a labor contract it knew couldn’t be sustained for more than a year or two.

However, our commitment and responsibility are to uphold EMF’s student-centered mission and successful model, ensure the Festival’s long-term sustainability, and fairly and competitively compensate our highly valued faculty and the important role they play in the Festival’s success.

What are the key points of disagreement between the faculty and management?

Among other outstanding issues remain the union’s insistence on EMF always fielding a fully professional orchestra with a substantial pay increase for a fixed number of at least 61 permanently tenured musicians of their choosing.

• Agreeing to the union’s terms would leave EMF without the flexibility to align faculty size and qualifications with the composition and needs of students and program offerings each year, as well as respond to changing economic conditions. The management of any financially sound organization would expect and need this flexibility.
• The union’s requested pay raise would increase EMF’s operating costs by approximately $250,000 over each of the three years of the proposed labor agreement and is sustainable only if incremental costs are cut elsewhere.  As part of the negotiation process, EMF offered to meet the union’s increased compensation demands with a package that exceeds that of professional musicians in this area. To be sustainable, EMF proposed reducing the number of faculty positions to 45, which would be more than sufficient to support innovative programming and educate students to the highest musical standards. The union’s negotiating committee rejected this offer.

Was EMF looking all along to fire faculty?

Absolutely not. EMF is striving to maintain its long-term sustainability. In recent decades, the faculty size has ranged between 55 and 72. Our hope would be to maintain, if not increase, that level – with the flexibility to adjust as needed to align with the composition and needs of students and program offerings each year as well as respond to changing economic conditions. Balancing spending and costs requires financial discipline and sometimes hard choices but is essential and well-understood by anyone who has ever had to manage a business balance sheet or household budget.

Is it true that EMF rejected an offer by a group of philanthropic donors to cover the cost of the pay increases the faculty is asking for?

No, that is not true. A small group of donors proposed a gift of $360,000 to help cover a portion of the union’s requested pay for faculty. EMF greatly appreciates the offer and tried to coordinate with the donors to make it work.

The proposed gift came with a number of “non-negotiable” strings that the board ultimately could not agree to:

1. Acceptance of the gift was contingent on EMF first agreeing to the union’s unilateral terms of the collective bargaining agreement, which has not occurred. Thus, EMF is not in a position to accept or not accept the proposed gift at this time.
2. Only $120,000 would have been available for 2025, and the total gift represented less than half of the union’s demand for a quarter of a million dollar increase in salary in each of the next three years. It is flat-out false and disingenuous to claim that the proposed gift would have been more than sufficient to cover the requested increase in faculty compensation.
3. The donors demanded six board seats in exchange for their cash donation — a quid pro quo arrangement that is ethically questionable and generally recognized as not proper in the nonprofit sector.

Has poor management put EMF in financial crisis? Does it need a change of leadership?

No. EMF is not in financial crisis, and its finances are not the reason for canceling this year’s Festival. EMF is lean, well-managed, financially sound and has operated in the black, on the thinnest of margins, for most of the last decade.

Throughout its history, EMF has faced periodic financial struggles. Prior to a turnaround that began a decade ago and led by its current management team, EMF was in financial crisis. Its financial statements published in IRS Form 990’s show that EMF was regularly posting tens of thousands of dollars in annual operating deficits, including upwards of $500,000 in a single year, under previous management and board leadership at that time. The EMF endowment had dropped by more than half from its height, and its line of credit had been revoked by the bank.

In the first full year of the current management team’s term, deficit spending was cut in half, and within three years, EMF operations broke even. The endowment fund returned almost to previous levels, and the donor base expanded beyond a small, loyal, and powerful group of donors to a broader, more diverse group of large and smaller supporters. Student enrollment increased because of the addition of new and innovative programs, and more scholarships were provided to more students than ever in the organization’s history.  All of that speaks to disciplined and prudent management.

EMF’s turnaround is all the more remarkable given the challenges it has faced over that same time period. It survived COVID and is adapting to changes in the charitable giving landscape that have led to the dissolution of many other not-for-profit organizations, especially those focused on arts and culture.

Can’t EMF just do more to raise more money from donors?

That will be much of our focus during this year’s pause of the Festival. Charitable gifts are the lifeblood of EMF, as for all not-for-profit organizations, and we are adapting to a rapidly changing philanthropic landscape. The widespread drop in individual giving levels and loss of many funding organizations has impacted nonprofits all around Greensboro. The work to earn meager support is harder than ever, yet we are proactively exploring and employing innovative ways to tap into a broader set of reliable funding sources and to engage with a broader donor base.

Will Eastern Music Festival return in the future?

This year’s pause will be used to work on plans for bringing the Festival back beginning in 2026. Thoughtful, collaborative and innovative work already is underway. Deep and thoughtful reimagining of EMF conversations continue. Board, staff, faculty, and alumni, community members and professional outside resources will all be brought together to discuss, dream, and design our next seasons. And thanks to the support of EMF’s friends, alumni, patrons, faculty, and family, we will continue to serve our students.

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Updated 3-12-25