Atlanta Symphony Lockout Ends With New Four-Year Deal

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra will open its delayed 70th season Thursday after management and musicians agreed on a four-year contract that raises players’ wages and health-care premiums, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The New York Times report. The deal, announced Saturday, ends a two-month lockout, the second bitter labor dispute to strike the organization in two years.

Musicians, who took sizable pay cuts under a two-year collective bargaining agreement in 2012, will see their salaries rise 6 percent over the course of the new deal. They agreed to a new health plan that doubles their contributions to $20 a week. The ensemble will grow from the current 77 musicians to 88 by the end of the fourth year, a key demand of the players’ union. The orchestra has run deficits for the past dozen years, ending fiscal 2014 $2-million in the red.