Officer Columns

Do We Have Money for You? Check the New Films and Claimed Payments

January 1, 2015

“New” films: The FMSMF received residuals for 137 “new” titles during the first seven months of the FMSMF 2014 fiscal year (from April 1 to October 31).

Organizing Means Raising the Profile of the People Making the Music

December 29, 2014

You can be a musician, and have power in numbers, too. As a union, it is our job to ensure that musicians get fair treatment and are recognized by their employers as the valuable employees that they are. But to do so, we must continue to engage our members and make sure that the general […]

Game Noise, Game Over; Update on Relocation; and IMA Negotiations

December 29, 2014

Last month, I promised to report on discussions I had in London with representatives of the British Musicians’ Union (BMU), prior to heading to Budapest for the first International Conference on Music Streaming.

CFM, a Year-in-Review

December 1, 2014

The year 2014 has been a turbulent one for the Canadian Federation of Musicians (CFM). However, to start on a positive, February saw the removal of rules about unionization votes from proposed Bill C-525. The deleted rules were completely biased against unions. At a December 2013 general meeting of Local 406 (Montreal, PQ), a motion […]

Year-End Happenings

December 1, 2014

While I was using some personal time, not at Federation’s expense, I recently found myself in Phoenix with friends. Many of them were in attendance at a marvelous gig, which was held in a jet airplane hangar dressed out like a dude ranch. The almost unbelievable interior was transformed by the Emmy award winning set […]

The Budapest Conference: A Campaign for Fairness in Music Streaming?

December 1, 2014

I am writing this month’s column while flying back to AFM headquarters after a week of informative meetings November 17 through 21 in London with our counterparts from the British Musicians Union on electronic media issues, and in Budapest, Hungary, where the Hungarian Musicians Union and the International Federation of Musicians (FIM) convened the first […]

Check Out Your Health Insurance Choices on November 15!

November 1, 2014

On November 15, the second open enrollment period will begin, allowing you to enroll in health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). If you don’t have health insurance, this is the time to sign up; if you do have coverage, it’s important to re-evaluate your health care needs.

Relocation, Part Two: Temporarily Postponed, but Very Much Alive

November 1, 2014

As previously reported in this column in July, Secretary-Treasurer Sam Folio and I, as fully authorized by your International Executive Board (IEB), opted to negotiate an agreement to purchase an office condo located in the financial district of lower Manhattan to serve as the AFM’s new home. In my June column, I also provided a […]

Time to Be a Union

November 1, 2014

by Bruce Fife, AFM International Executive Board Member and President of Local 99 (Portland, OR) We are the union. It’s our union, and it works on a pretty simple premise that, when put into practice, can be used to create amazing outcomes. People try to make it more complicated than that, but the basis couldn’t be […]

The Underachieving Tariff 8 and Other Scary Stuff

November 1, 2014

As consumers of music shift toward the “all you can eat” digital streaming services as the preferred platform, that should create more revenue for musicians, right? Musicians don’t need to be signed to a major label to distribute their recordings, and that means more airplay/streams and therefore more earnings, correct?  In a word, no.