By Lucy Goeres

I have known and worked with Mary Landolfi for most of my professional life, and can honestly say that she is one of the most intelligent, fair minded and trustworthy people I’ve ever known.

As committee chair of the Long Island Philharmonic, I worked closely with Mary in her capacity as Financial Vice President of Local 802. Her thorough and organized approach to the contract negotiation process was particularly impressive. Because twelve orchestras were involved, ending up with the same numbers seemed a daunting task, but because Mary provided a forum for all the committees to work together, it was achieved and has held ever since. We met once a month for the year preceding the negotiation and had plenty of time to discuss the issues, air our differences and find the common ground. We discovered that combining our forces added considerable strength when facing the various managements across the table and that the integrity of each committee was only enhanced by working together.

Of course a great contract isn’t worth much if it can’t be enforced. In the subsequent years, I made numerous calls to Mary asking for her help when management didn’t follow the rules. She wrote the letters, made the phone calls, filed the grievances and got results every time. Due to her efforts, it was discovered that a bookkeeper in the LIP office had siphoned off $50,000 of our payroll taxes! Having such an effective union presence behind us was very empowering to committee members and the orchestra musicians; that’s why I’ll be voting for the Concerned Musicians ticket.