Musician Performance Rights–Pending Legislation to Benefit Musicians
June 9, 2010Yesterday I received another email from AFM President Lee. Unlike the video the previous day, which had a “please join the union message,” this one was all business. It tells of the legislation before Congress right now that would benefit musician’s works that are played on terrestrial radio. Here’s part of the email. One of […]
Reinforcing The Image of the AFM– Old, Dated and Out of Touch
June 8, 2010Today I received an email from Thomas F. Lee the President of the American Federation of Musicians. I suppose that it went to all AFM members for whom they have email addresses. It begins: Dear Member RICKER: I am pleased to announce that the Federation is developing a series of videos to educate musicians and […]
Seattle and the Union
January 6, 2010Negotiations in Seattle seemed to have reached a rolling boil, judging by this article. Equally interesting is a recent post by Zachary Carstensen, a Seattle arts reporter, on the situation: However, just before the start of the 2009-2010 season, my own opinion of the orchestra’s health began to shift. The SSO had only just begun […]
An important election you didn't know about
December 3, 2009Most orchestra musicians don’t pay much attention to union politics. That’s OK: most politics in the AFM is not worth paying much attention to. But there was an election the other day that’s worth noting. The two largest locals in the AFM are Local 47 (Los Angeles) and Local 802 (New York). Both are dominated […]