Foxy,
Your bleating 'diversity' crap is making me want to throw up.

14 people got fired for no other reason than their colour, and all you can do play the violin about 'other' races being discriminated against.

... And then you complain about what others think.

I'm starting to get sick and tired of all this greater good bs, honestly.

"14 people got fired for no other reason than their colour" AC that is not an established fact, they were not "fired" as they had been employed on a contractual basis. Also, the whole orchestra was white, so anyone who were "terminated" would be white. The orchestra consisted of 50 individuals, all white, stands to reason that any non renewed contracts would be of white people. ETO had employed a new music director Gerry Cornelius, Mr Cornelius may have under the guise of "diversity" taken the opportunity to clear some old dead wood from the orchestra, people whose best playing days were behind them. Over the summer auditions were held for all, seems 3/4 of the all white orchestra retained their positions. I said in an earlier post this was handled badly by ETO, and if they had wanted to "cull the crap", then they should have simply done so, and been honest about it.

It is time for all of us to come together to fight
discrimination like that carried out by the English
Touring Opera company and to demand that individual
merit, not group membership should be the determinant
of success.

Anything less is merely the continuation of division and
destruction and perpetuation of the group-based
discrimination we should all be fighting.

By all means we can laud efforts to increase diversity
in a workplace but this should be achieved fairly and
legitimately, not by "sacking " half an orchestra.

If the ETO was serious about recruiting a more diverse
workforce then its focus should be on creating an
orchestra where musicians are valued, respected, and
encouraged to fully participate. Sacking half of the players
works against creating an inclusive environment for
more diverse musicians.

Sacking half the workforce under the guise of "improving
diversity" is insincere and bad practice.

Foxy,
Half of 50 is 25 not 14.

Hi Issy,

From what I can work out the ETO has a pool of 50 contracted musicians, how they are paid I don't know, a flat fee or by performance. Being a touring company would some tour at times according to what is going to be performed.

I suspect with a new musical director Mr Cornelius on board he may have wanted to update the talent in the orchestra pit. With the Arts Council on their back about "diversity" the ETO might have seen this as an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Cornelius runs his auditions, get rid of the dead wood, and the ETO hierarchy can claim they are adhering to Arts Council policy of "diversity". I suspect someone whose getting on in years might not be the musician he was 20 years ago, how do you tell him.

Glad you didn't get flooded, a bit hairy driving at night with flood waters about, bad enough in daylight. The relo's copped it at Orange. Cuz told me it rained, I think Wednesday none stop, heavy rail all night. The Wellington mob also copped a drenching, Cuz told me, with both the Bell and Macquarie Rivers bursting their banks in places. First time I've heard of flooding around Stewart Town and Euchreena

Paul,

That the ETO has essentially owned up to ditching these 14 musicians due to the colour of their skin makes your post bollocks.

Martin Luther King's dream was to see people judged on their merit and not on their skin colour seems to have eluded these half wits.