Manhattan School of Music Faculty Moves to Organize

[billyoc]

For 39 years the flutist Harold Jones — a stalwart of New York’s classical music scene — taught at the Manhattan School of Music, maintaining a steady stable of a half-dozen students at the conservatory’s youth division.

But something changed in the last two years. The administration assigned fewer and fewer students to him. His sole remaining pupil left last year, and Mr. Jones is no longer listed among the faculty on the school’s Web site, www.msmnyc.edu.

“I did my job every week I came here,” he said. “To be punished, put aside — I didn’t like it. I couldn’t protest.”

Mr. Jones is held out by a group of Manhattan School teachers as an example of why this conservatory in Morningside Heights needs a union. So the group has begun an organization effort, which has run into strong opposition by the administration.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/14/arts/music/14unio.html?_r=1&oref=slogin