Last June, musicians from the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players (NYGASP) went on a runout to the Wolftrap theatre in Virginia. The trip usually takes four hours, but due to a bus breakdown, the trip took ten. The collective bargaining agreement requires management to pay musicians $10 per hour after the sixth hour of travel. Management refused to pay the musicians, arguing that they shouldn’t be held liable for failures of the bus company. The musicians thought that this was management’s fault because of the unusually high number of substandard NYGASP buses that have had problems in the past.

Just days before the matter was submitted to arbitration, management agreed to pay each of the 15 musicians on the bus $30.