Minnesota Orchestra Goes Public With Latest Offer

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - The Minnesota Orchestra is going public with latest offer to its locked-out musicians.

Reports say the proposal is essentially the same as one that musicians rejected in July.

Under the board's proposal, musicians would return at their former salaries on Sept. 30 and would "play and talk" for two months.

If no agreement were reached, a 24-month contract would go into effect that would pay the musicians an annual average salary of $102,200. That would represent a 24 percent cut from the average annual salary of $135,000 in the musicians' previous contract, which expired Sept. 30, 2012. But it represents a better deal than the 34 percent cut the board offered last September.

A musicians' spokesman says the proposal is "one we've already rejected."