Since the Coro del Estado de Jalisco was founded in 1982, it has soared as a symphonic choir, performing classical music and operas with the Jalisco Philharmonic Orchestra and traveling around the state and outside the country, even to prisons, presenting classical, popular and historical music. But it has also endured personnel cuts (from 76 members to 22), paltry pay raises, and zero health and retirement benefits.
Since January, the current state secretary of culture has been buffeting the group with administrative mayhem, and members have started complaining publicly. The problems range from longstanding contractual conditions to bizarre new auditions for existing members and falsified firing letters, singers say.
“We are contracted by honorarios (sometimes informal, professional fees) … Lawyers who look at the contracts say they’re a pretense … We have a schedule of work, a place of work … a fixed number of presentations,” singer Cecilia Ledesma said in a radio interview, adding that, “if I get sick, the costs come out of my own pocket.”
One of the choir’s founding singers called the group’s terms of employment “totally illegal.”
The singers assert that the choir has suffered mistreatment under repeated culture secretaries — the most “unconscionable” being Myriam Vachez around 2015. (One who was relatively helpful was Lourdes Gonzalez in the early 2020s.)
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