President’s Message

I am pleased to announce that the International Executive Board has appointed Terryl Jares, president of the Chicago Federation of Musicians, Local 10-208 (Chicago, IL), to fill the unexpired term of Tino Gagliardi, former president of New York City Local 802, who resigned his IEB seat to accept my appointment as director of the Federation’s Theatre, Touring, and Booking Division and also as International Representative assisting locals located in the Eastern United States.

International Officer Jares has served Local 10-208 continuously since 1995, first as a member of the local’s board of directors, then as the first woman to be elected vice president in 2004, and also as the first woman to be elected president of Local 10-208, a position she has held since 2016. She has served as an AFM convention delegate since 2003, most recently in 2019 as a member of the convention Finance Committee.
Terryl graduated from Illinois State University with an applied performance degree in violin and viola, and also with a degree in music education. She has performed in theatrical pit orchestras throughout the Chicago area and has toured across the United States performing with theatrical and orchestral productions. Terryl is an executive vice president of the Illinois AFL-CIO and an officer of the Chicago Entertainment Industry Labor Council.

Theatre, Touring, and Booking Division Director Tino Gagliardi served as president and executive director of the Associated Musicians of Greater New York, Local 802, from 2009 until 2018, and was elected to the International Executive Board four times, initially in 2010 and most recently in June 2019. Tino is a graduate of the University of Hartford and its Hartt School of Music, and enjoyed a decades-long career as a lead trumpet player, touring the world as a member of Broadway show pit orchestras performing under Pamphlet B and also as a pit orchestra member in every Broadway theater.
During his performing career, Tino was a regular in New York City’s concert, club date, and recording fields. As president of Local 802, he led the negotiations for Broadway, the Lincoln Center resident orchestras, and Radio City. Tino is a trustee to the American Federation of Musicians and Employers’ Pension Fund and the AFM & SAG-AFTRA Intellectual Property Rights Distribution Fund. In addition to his role as director of the Theatre, Touring, and Booking Division, Tino will serve as International Representative to locals in the Eastern US, assuming the duties of Gene Tournour, who recently retired from that position after nearly 25 years of service.

Previous Theatre, Touring, and Booking Division Director George Fiddler has accepted my appointment as director of Immigration Services, and will review and administer the day-to-day receipt of information from employers and from foreign musicians who seek visa consultation and advice from the Federation for submission to the US Department of Labor and the Department of Homeland Security. In addition to his immigration services duties, George will also assist Director Gagliardi as associate director of the Theatre, Touring, and Booking Division, particularly in anticipation of the opening of negotiations for a successor Pamphlet B agreement covering the services of musicians employed across the United States and Canada in theatrical touring productions.
George is a graduate of the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook, and worked at Radio City Music Hall, and also in the freelance and club date scene in New York City for decades. He began his work with the Federation in 2008 supervising visa consultation requests from foreign booking agents and musicians, and later served as interim director of the Theatre, Touring, and Booking Division.

Steve Begnoche, former trustee of Austin, Texas Local 433, has accepted my appointment as International Representative for the southern United States, stepping into the shoes of retiring International Rep Gerald “Cass” Acosta of Shreveport, Louisiana, who held that post for nearly 20 years. Steve is a percussionist who holds a music degree from the University of Hartford and the Hartt School of Music. He served Local 23 (San Antonio, TX) and Local 65-699 (Houston, TX) as an executive administrative assistant, where he oversaw office operations and multiple service programs, including job referrals, Music Performance Trust Fund project development, and organizing membership and recruitment drives.
I extend my best wishes to former International Representatives Cass Acosta and Gene Tournour for an amazing and well-deserved retirement, and I hope that Cass and Gene will now have the time to do the things they never had the time to do. I also welcome Executive Officer Terryl Jares, Theatre, Touring, and Booking Director and International Representative Tino Gagliardi, Immigration Services Director George Fiddler, and International Representative Steve Begnoche to their new roles and duties in furtherance of the mission and goals of the Federation, our locals, and our members. I am looking forward to working with each of you, as we strive to improve the lives of musicians everywhere.

With the 101st AFM Convention now in the rearview mirror and the annual August marathon of player conference meetings concluded, the Federation has turned its attention toward its collective bargaining objectives in television and motion picture film scoring, live television production, sound recording production, touring theatrical musicals, and public radio and public television.

First and most immediate in our procession of industry-wide negotiations toward acceptable successor agreements is the resumption of discussions with television and theatrical film producers to obtain industry-standard wage and residual patterns in the scoring of soundtrack for programs made for New Media. “New Media” is a term of art to describe content produced for on-demand consumption on streaming platforms that are either advertiser-supported (AVOD) or subscriber-based (SVOD). Our existing contract extension with the film industry expires November 14. Negotiations with signatory film producers are set to begin October 7 in Los Angeles.

In March of this year, as in March of 2018, the
Federation and film producers agreed to extend the agreement previously
concluded in 2015—with increases to session wages in traditional media—because
the parties deemed a short-term contract solution as a better alternative to
the existing deadlock resulting from the producers’ failure to adequately
address the Federation’s goal of achieving acceptable wage and residual
patterns for the scoring of tracks for original streaming media.

In recent years, the rise of streaming as a
preferred model of digital distribution and consumption has radically
transformed the media marketplace. Worldwide, audiences have accelerated toward
both advertiser-supported and subscription-based consumption models that
benefit digital service providers, producers, and other stakeholders, but
studios have refused to bargain progressive terms for musicians in streaming
media to augment the existing residual provisions in traditional media.

There is no shortage of news about the rise of online
streaming services and the impact upon the relationship between consumers and
traditional media—live television broadcasts, cable and satellite TV, the sale
of DVDs, and the movie box office. The generational difference in consumer
preferences has seen subscribers migrate to subscriber-based streaming
platforms like Netflix and Amazon as viewers trend away from traditional media.

Over the past few years, the TV networks and film
studios have agreed to make meaningful residual payments and have increased pension
and health contributions to singers, actors, writers, and directors when
content is made for streaming, but have refused to do so for musicians. It is
unconscionable that these wealthy global companies have decided that some
digital content creators deserve compensation that reflects the value of their
work, but that musicians don’t. Any industry trend toward a streaming
distribution model that excludes a residual compensation and pension
contribution basis for musicians, who contribute as much or more to a film as
anyone else, is unacceptable and due for an all-out fight for fairness.

The Federation has had constructive agreements with
the film industry since the 1930s and with the television networks since the
early 1950s. Over the decades, the livelihoods of thousands of talented
musicians have been substantially supported by Federation film and television
agreements. A distribution model lacking fair session wages, pension
contributions, and a residual compensation base would dramatically and negatively
impact musicians’ lives. Newer generations of musicians would be unable to
sustain a middle-class lifestyle, support families, or retire in dignity.

AFM members across the country have launched the #BandTogether
Campaign to demand a fair contract in new media from TV and theatrical
film producers and are engaging in concerted activity in their fight for
respect from the producers. Musicians also know that their pension fund needs
additional employer contributions, and that the flood of money toward digital
media is a place to get those contributions.

As I’ve previously reported, digital revenue in the
entertainment and media industry totaled $616 billion in 2013 worldwide. That
figure was expected to rise to $1 trillion last year. Against this dramatic
rise in industry revenue and profits, the Federation, its locals, and its
members have no choice but to address the glaring disparity between those who
create and those who exploit, particularly at a time when the major
studios—Warner, Disney, Universal and CBS—are launching their own streaming
platforms and refusing to pay musicians standard wages, pension contributions,
and residuals for content made for those platforms.

When we resume our meetings with film studios in
October, the Federation will continue to seek a fair bargain when musicians are
employed to score original programs for AVOD and SVOD platforms. Some sore
points are as follows:

Standardized wages and industry-standard
residuals. Why should musicians, unlike other creative artists in the
film industry, be forced to accept sub-standard wages and benefits, and forego
residuals when employed for a streaming production? How rich do the producers,
the studios, and their investors need to be before musicians, who are as
important as anyone else in the film, are treated fairly?

Industry-standard Electronic Sell Through
(EST) provisions. If a covered motion picture is sold or rented from a
cable or satellite TV service or streaming platform (Netflix or Amazon, for
example), musicians should receive a fair, industry-standard residual, like
other creative artists do.

Screen Credits. Every musician,
orchestrator, and copyist employed under the Federation’s film and television
contracts should be credited in the crawl at the end of the show. Everyone who
worked on the production gets credited, including the principal and assistant
coffee runners. What about musicians? The composer is always prominently
billed, but keep watching the credits roll to see the conductor, the music-prep
office, the recording studio and engineer, the music contractor, and every
other music-related entity from whom not one note of music emanated or was
captured and memorialized in the recording of the film score. Each musician
whose sound is embodied in the score should receive screen credit.

I will report on the results of the Federation’s discussions
with the film industry in this column next month.

Each August, I have the pleasure of attending the annual meetings of the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians (ICSOM), the Regional Orchestra Players’ Association (ROPA), the Organization of Canadian Symphony Musicians (OCSM), and the Theater Musicians’ Association (TMA). ICSOM, ROPA, OCSM, TMA, together with the Recording Musicians Association (RMA), comprise five intermediate bodies within the AFM known as player conferences.

Player conferences promote internal member
involvement by providing forums for musicians from similar workplaces
throughout the Federation to share their experiences, to identify, articulate,
and prioritize their needs and discuss and develop plans of action to address
those needs. The flow of accurate information from the workplace to local and
Federation officers and staff from rank-and-file committees, through their
conferences, is vital to our support toward the bargaining of our members’
collective agreements, as well as efforts to organize additional meaningful
employment for musicians.

I find it extremely beneficial to attend player
conference meetings. It demonstrates that despite differences in
instrumentation, wage scales and benefits, or the hundreds or thousands of
miles separating our members by country and venue, we all share the same
fundamental problems—exploitation by employers and managers who make way more
from our labor than we do, but who couldn’t do what we do as musicians in a
million years.

Player conferences elect their officials by a vote
of delegates from constituent workplaces. A consistent goal of my
administration has always been to maintain close working relationships and
clear and effective lines of communication between the Federation and all
conferences, including our geographical conferences.

Player conference leaders perform an important role
in our union—they channel musicians’ attitudes, experiences, opinions, hopes,
and desires directly to the union from the workplace, so that, as a team, we
can organize to bargain and bargain to organize. After my election as your
president nine years ago, I supported a policy of rotating player conference
leaders as monthly columnists in the International Musician.

This month, I am reintroducing AFM’s player
conference leaders in this column, each with a bit of biographical information.
They are wonderful people and I enjoy working with them. I’d like to thank them
for bringing their energy, dedication, and commitment to bear on behalf of
their talented constituents as we continue to build real unionism and a unity
of purpose for the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and
Canada.

ICSOM Chairperson Meredith Snow, a graduate of the Juilliard School, has been a member of AFM Locals 802 and 47. She began her career as a violist with the Colorado String Quartet, then San Francisco Opera Orchestra, and for the past 30 years has performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. She was elected as a delegate to ICSOM in 1991 where she served as a member-at-large to the ICSOM Governing Board until her election as ICSOM chairperson in 2016.

OCSM President Robert Fraser became secretary-treasurer of AFM Local 247 Victoria, British Columbia, Canada in 1991 early in his career as a trombonist with the Victoria Symphony Orchestra. He continued to serve as an officer of Local 247 until 2002. He became a union activist as a result of his experiences as a local union officer and also, he says, because he was inspired to activism by the leadership of Canadian locals, the player conferences, the Federation leadership and Federation senior staff. Robert represented the Victoria Symphony as a delegate to OCSM from 1999-2003, then served as OSCM secretary from 2003 through 2013, when he was elected as president of OCSM.

ROPA President John Michael Smith. A bassist in the Minnesota Opera Orchestra, John Michael’s involvement in ROPA began in 2007, serving first as an alternate delegate and later as delegate to ROPA from the Minnesota Opera Orchestra. He began his performing career with the Norfolk (VA) Symphony, has been a member of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, and has performed, recorded, and toured with both the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Minnesota Orchestra. He was elected to the ROPA Executive Board in 2011 and became president in 2016. John Michael also serves as chair of the ROPA Electronic Media Committee and served on the AFM’s negotiating team for the recently concluded Integrated Media Agreement (IMA). He is an active freelancer in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area and is a Life Member of Local 30-73. 

RMA
International President Marc Sazer is an active performer both in the recording studios of Hollywood and in
Southern California concert halls. Marc has performed for innumerable film,
television, recording, and other media projects, from TV shows like Animaniacs and Pinky & the Brain to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Empire, films from My
Big Fat Greek Wedding to the
currently-scoring Star Wars Episode IX, to records for Shirley Horn, Frank Sinatra, and
Randy Newman. He is a current a member of the Pasadena Symphony, and has
performed with virtually every orchestra in the Los Angeles area. He currently
serves as first vice president of the LA Chapter of the Recording Musicians
Association, and international president of RMA. He has been at the forefront
of campaigning for fair contracts, fair tax credits, and fair employment for
AFM musicians.

TMA President Tony D’Amico. A freelance bassist in the New England area, Tony performs regularly with the Boston Pops, Boston Philharmonic, Rhode Island Philharmonic, and Portland (ME) Symphony Orchestra. He also performs with locally produced and touring theatrical musicals when shows are presented in Boston. He is a member of Boston Local 9-535 and Providence Local 198-457, has served on the Executive Board of Boston Local 9-535 since 2001, and has served on that local’s theatre committee for many years. He founded the Boston TMA Chapter in 2006 and was elected as TMA president in 2016.

Together We Can!

One hundred and twenty-three years after our founding Convention in Indianapolis in October 1896, the Federation convened its 101st Convention on June 20 in Las Vegas. With more than a century of advocacy and 101 conventions to its credit, the
Federation’s enormous accomplishments for professional musicians, economically and politically, were celebrated not just by elected officials and delegates, but by our sister unions, dignitaries, and guests.

In memorializing these historic anniversaries—and our accomplishments—nothing could have clarified the Federation’s purpose better than the diverse program of superb musical performances presented from the eve of the convention to adjournment. For anyone who might have wondered why on earth there ever was an American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada, just hearing the supreme musicianship of such instrumental luminaries as Blue Lou Marini; Walt Fowler; University of North Texas Jazz Faculty Mike Steinel, Ed Soph, John Adams, Fred Hamilton, Rosana Eckert, and Brian Piper; the touching memorial service accompaniment by members of the Las Vegas Philharmonic Orchestra; and the many other fine performances by Local 369 musicians during the course of our meetings provided a musical explanation, nourishment, and context. The power of our members’ music became the backdrop for the attitudes, the issues, and the discussions that followed.

As those present would realize—particularly after hearing heartfelt testimonials by Matt Comerford of the Chicago Lyric Opera and Terryl Jares, president of Local 10-208, on the recent Lyric Opera and Chicago Symphony strikes; Local 72-147 bluesman Jim Suhler with Omaha Local 70-558 president Dan Cerveny about the abuse and default experienced in an Omaha nightclub; enthusiastic Boise Philharmonic Orchestra Musicians who demanded and obtained recognition from their management, prompting the re-chartering of AFM’s Boise Local 423; and the powerful narrative and video presentation from Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra Negotiating Committee members Dan Sigale and Julie Vinsant who, with the unwavering support of Dallas-Fort Worth Local 72-147 and AFM’s Organizing and Symphonic Services Divisions, withstood a terrible four-month strike, defeating attempts by management to impose unjustified concessions—the power of real unionism can make a difference in musicians’ lives, helping build the unity necessary to inspire millions of musicians worldwide.

As many of you know, in addition to reviewing various bylaw changes and policy resolutions, convention delegates elect Federation officers for three-year terms effective August 1 of each convention year. I am honored and privileged to have been reelected by acclamation to serve another term, and I am also deeply gratified that delegates chose to reelect by acclamation Vice-President Bruce Fife, Vice-President from Canada Alan Willaert, and Secretary-Treasurer Jay Blumenthal. Current executive committee members John Acosta, Tino Gagliardi, Dave Pomeroy, and Tina Morrison were also reelected, along with Local 161-710 President Ed Malaga, a newly elected member of the committee. First and foremost, we are a team, and we will continue to work together to improve the condition of the Federation and the livelihood of musicians everywhere, as we have done over the past nine years.

The 101st
Convention was certainly a major celebration, but it was also a time to
remember what our ancestors were doing when they started their engines in
Indianapolis 123 years ago—a dangerous time for unions. Our founders were
activists. They believed that by working together through concerted activity,
they could save lives. They also knew there would be the hate-preaching, the
scapegoating, and the divisiveness that comes with the territory. They knew
that some of our own members would become union busters to pursue their own
selfish politics of personal enrichment. They knew it would be a fight.

That is why it
was important to remember who we are, where we came from, what we did, and how
we did it over a span of 101 conventions, before and after the advent of
technology, the invention of records, radio, film, the talkies, television,
cable, the internet, on-demand streaming, and everything else. What did we do
in the beginning?

We didn’t make excuses. We got out of our own way.
We worked together, we compromised and organized. Our founders were in it to
build a union that would endure for generations. They knew the way to reach our
potential and grow a strong union was to agree on a set of unifying principles
to build union power, and then aim that power toward our employers to promote
fairness and improve members’ lives. And it’s just as important to know that
when we abandon the principles that bound us together to begin with, we lose.
We hurt each other, and we become the very thing that destroys us—where members
take from each other what they believe they can’t get from the employer.

Together, we can
make a difference. Our staff and our team of elected officials have made a
difference. Local officers and members across the Federation who’ve stood up to
employers have made a difference. We’ve endured for 123 years because we are
hopeful and because of our members’ incredible talent.

As musicians, we
have power. Through the power of our music, we have the strength to find the
unity we need to achieve our goals.

That is why the 101st Convention was a renewal of faith in
what we can do together, about remembering the great things we did together,
and what we can be. We can do it all again, because we have to. Our union must
be about what we can do for each other, not to each other. It’s
about sticking together and protecting each other, because TOGETHER, WE CAN!
That’s real unionism. That is our purpose, and that is why we are the American
Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada. God bless this union.
Here’s to another 123 years.

The American
Federation of Musicians and Employers’ Pension Fund (Fund) has faced financial
difficulties since the global 2007-2008 recession. Similar to dozens of other
pension plans, the Fund is now underfunded and will be unable to pay benefits
at the level projected in the pre-recession financial market. The Fund’s
history of financial struggles is available here. The Fund is in the process of
evaluating various options to reduce a portion of participants’ benefits in
order to remain financially solvent.