Twenty-one-year-old James Francies of Local 65-699 (Houston, TX), is not your typical college student. At the School of Jazz at The New School, where he studies jazz piano performance, he juggles course work with professional gigs, which these days include touring across Europe.

Early in 2015, after several years of lobbying efforts by AFM Legislative and Political Director Alfonso Pollard and AFM International President Ray Hair with the National Instrument Carry-On Coalition, the US government voted the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Modernization and Reform Act into legislation.

Recently in Los Angeles, the California State Labor Federation, along with state labor federations from Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, held a conference to address what is deemed to be the inevitable implementation of national “right to work” legislation by the current US Congress. Several hundred union leaders gathered to discuss best practices for unions already facing right to work. Invaluable information was distributed to those in attendance.

One of the first gigs Paul Nowell landed just out of Berklee College in 2007 was a world tour with the Glenn Miller Orchestra

Once the process began in earnest, principal concerns came from Republicans who believed that the new health care bill should include provisions 1) to provide coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, 2) for those with employer-based health insurance, and 3) for cuts to Planned Parenthood.

Unions are all about improving the quality of life for hardworking men and women. The contractual gains enjoyed by bargaining unit members have a direct correlation to the solidarity within the unit.