Now is the right time to become an American Federation of Musicians member. From ragtime to rap, from the early phonograph to today's digital recordings, the AFM has been there for its members. And now there are more benefits available to AFM members than ever before, including a multi-million dollar pension fund, excellent contract protection, instrument and travelers insurance, work referral programs and access to licensed booking agents to keep you working.

As an AFM member, you are part of a membership of more than 80,000 musicians. Experience has proven that collective activity on behalf of individuals with similar interests is the most effective way to achieve a goal. The AFM can negotiate agreements and administer contracts, procure valuable benefits and achieve legislative goals. A single musician has no such power.

The AFM has a proud history of managing change rather than being victimized by it. We find strength in adversity, and when the going gets tough, we get creative - all on your behalf.

Like the industry, the AFM is also changing and evolving, and its policies and programs will move in new directions dictated by its members. As a member, you will determine these directions through your interest and involvement. Your membership card will be your key to participation in governing your union, keeping it responsive to your needs and enabling it to serve you better. To become a member now, visit www.afm.org/join.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE AFM

IM



Tax Filing Tips – 2024 (US)

It’s Tax Time: Make It Easy on Yourself To help streamline your 2023 returns, here are some of the new and enhanced programs issued by the IRS in 2024. Taxes can be complicated for musicians. Which form? What can I claim? E-file, where? To help you sort it all out, we outlined a few basic […]

Read More

Canadian Tax Filing Tips

Get a Head Start on Your Taxes Using CRA’s Digital Services It’s tax season again. Many of us put off filing our income tax and benefit returns until the last minute or avoid filing altogether. By not filing, you might be missing out on certain benefit and credit payments, or a potential refund. Electronic Filing […]

Read More

Tackling Migraines: Help for More Pain-Free Days

Those who suffer from migraines experience severe, debilitating throbbing pain, often occurring on one side of the head. Attacks frequently cause disabling symptoms. Visual disturbances, nausea and vomiting, dizziness, fainting, and severe sensitivity to light, sound, touch, and smell, are common. More than one billion people worldwide are affected by migraines, making it the third […]

Read More

Lesa Terry: Music Builds Many and Varied Bridges

Lesa Terry of Local 47 (Los Angeles, CA) was still in school when Leonard Bernstein came to her sister’s house. “It was my first time playing at the Hollywood Bowl,” she recalls. It was with a training orchestra through the Los Angeles Philharmonic. “Bernstein was conducting. And let me tell you, that was an experience […]

Read More

So-so-so-solidarité!

by Dusty Kelly, International Executive Board and Executive Director Local 149 (Toronto, ON) I have been an adherent to the concept of solidarity for as long as I can remember. It’s with me when I am on the picket line, it’s with me when I am in negotiations, it’s with me when I am organizing, […]

Read More

The AFM Joins a Health Care Movement

by John O’Connor, Executive Board Member of Local 380-443 (Binghamton, NY) In the late 1990s, former Local 802 (New York City) President Bill Moriarity was appointed to lead an AFM task force that explored health insurance options available to musicians, analyzed the health care system in the United States, and delivered a report to the […]

Read More

A New Direction for Diversity

by Beth Zare, AFM Diversity Committee Chair and Secretary-Treasurer, Local 6 (San Francisco, CA) I wish to thank AFM International President Tino Gagliardi for his confidence in appointing me chair of the Diversity Committee. During this month dedicated to Black History, I feel called to reflect on the past and future of the AFM’s efforts […]

Read More

Black History Is AFM History: Learning from Our Past

During Black History Month the AFM celebrates Black artists whose music changed the world. From Robert Johnson’s blues to Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s pop-gospel, they are indelibly linked to a cultural framework in American history, rooted in social justice. Yet, it’s impossible to discuss AFM history and its fight for musician rights without examining the segregation […]

Read More

Union Divided: Black Musicians’ Fight for Labor Equality

Leta E. Miller follows the AFM’s history of Black locals, which were chartered alongside white locals in the same territories, from their origins and successes in the 1920s through Depression-era crises to the fraught process of desegregation in the 1960s and 1970s. Millier details how Black AFM locals sought to ensure employment and competitive wages for members with always evolving […]

Read More

GADD: A Life in Time

Gadd: A Live in Time is heavily illustrated with nearly 200 photographs of Steve Gadd, the much-celebrated and in-demand drummer of Local 802 (New York City). He was introduced to the drums at age three by his uncle, a former Army drummer, who gave him his first pair of sticks. Gadd was prodigious, quickly absorbing […]

Read More

NEWS