Discord With Union Stymies New Orchestra : Music: Symphony files charges with labor board over being put on blacklist.

The tickets have been sold, the conductor is planning his pieces, and a schedule of concerts fills the 1995-96 calendar. Now all the recently formed New West Symphony needs are some musicians.

But with union negotiations at a standstill less than two months before New West’s first concert at the Civic Arts Plaza, symphony board members are taking their struggle to fill the 80 empty seats to the National Labor Relations Board.

New West has filed charges with the NLRB that local affiliates of the American Federation of Musicians have “threatened, coerced, and restrained New West Symphony by putting it on a blacklist for the purpose of hiring certain employees of the Ventura [County] Symphony Orchestra.”

New West’s move is a response to the national union’s decision last month to put New West on its International Unfair List, a move that bars thousands of Southern California’s best musicians from auditioning for or playing with the symphony. Union officials added the orchestra to the list in July, contending that New West is a successor to the Conejo and Ventura County symphonies and thus should not require musicians who played with those groups to audition for their seats.

“Since you’re merging the board and having the same conductor and same venue, why not merge the symphonies?” said Steve Thiroux, a bassoonist and member of the union’s negotiating committee.

Despite the claims to the NLRB and the looming premiere concert, union musicians voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to stick to their no-audition position. They have rejected the latest New West proposal, which offered former Conejo and Ventura musicians first crack at auditions for the new symphony.

Susan Feller, a management consultant hired by New West to oversee negotiations, said filing charges with the NLRB was a last resort in a labor dispute marked by anonymous threats and obscene cartoons from some of those angry about the formation of the New West Symphony--which emerged in March when board members agreed to dissolve the Conejo and Ventura County symphonies. One of the cartoons sent to symphony headquarters in Thousand Oaks depicted conductor Boris Brott with a bloody baton through his heart.

Feller said New West also plans to file a temporary restraining order in federal court seeking to remove the symphony from the Unfair List.

“It was our hope that some reason would prevail here on the part of the union and that we wouldn’t have to litigate,” Feller said.

But until the NLRB intervenes or a restraining order is obtained, New West remains on the Unfair List, published last week in the International Musician, a monthly union magazine. The list contains about a dozen organizations in the United States that the union believes have been unfair to its workers.

Union musicians who play with or audition for organizations on the list can be fined up to $10,000 and expelled from the union. The symphony also cannot advertise in the union magazine, which goes to musicians across the country.

Symphony officials said they are puzzled by the listing because they are not yet a union orchestra. The union had an interim collective bargaining agreement with only the Ventura County Symphony, but that expired in June.

Musicians fought hard to win that agreement, only to have their symphony dissolved months later. The Conejo Symphony had union members, but never negotiated a contract. Together the orchestras had about 150 players, who must now compete for New West’s 80 slots.

“Our position is that this is a new symphony,” said Lawrence Blonquist, president of the New West board of directors. “Since it is not union and not a successor, there is no reason for putting a non-union symphony, in a sense a nonexistent symphony, on their Unfair List.”

Meanwhile, symphony officials have set Sept. 15 as the last possible date to fill the seats in time for New West’s premiere Oct. 6 and say they are willing to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement with any union musicians chosen.

“I can’t see how it would benefit them if we didn’t have a symphony,” Blonquist said.