President’s Message

On March 18, after a week of intense negotiations, an agreement was
reached with major Hollywood film producers and their television film
counterparts to extend the existing Theatrical and Motion Picture Film
agreements until November 14, 2019, with a 2% increase in wages. As was agreed
one year ago, the parties deemed a short-term contract solution as the better
alternative to the existing deadlock resulting from the producers’ failure to
adequately address the Federation’s goal of creating residual payments for
films and content made originally for streaming platforms.

Below are my remarks from a rally hosted by Local 47 (Los Angeles, CA) immediately prior to our negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and TV Producers toward a successor film agreement.

Good morning, brothers and sisters. I’m proud to be here with my colleagues from the AFM International Executive Board, AFM staff, Local 47 (Los Angeles, CA) officers and staff, members of our sister union SAG-AFTRA, the good folks from the LA County Federation of Labor, but most importantly, great musicians, members of the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada—the oldest and largest labor union in the world representing professional musicians.

If you’ve been
following the status of the American Federation of Musicians and Employers’
Pension Fund (AFM-EPF), you know it has been facing severe funding problems
since the Great Recession, despite earning relatively good investment returns
since then and receiving a significant contribution increase. As detailed more
below, however, these have not been enough to “right the ship.” As a result,
the trustees are preparing for a critical and declining certification in the
spring and an application to the Treasury Department under the 2014 federal law
known as “MPRA” for approval to reduce benefits to the extent necessary to
remain solvent for the next 30 years.

If you missed the excellent article by Music Performance Trust Fund (MPTF) Trustee Dan Beck in our January 2019 issue of the International Musician, entitled “Accelerating the MPTF Mission for 2019,” I encourage you to go back, find it, and read it. Dan’s article can be read together with my June 2018 column about the employment, audience-building, and community recognition advantages that can be realized through smart MPTF programs.

When we consider fair wages and working conditions
for musicians working roadshows, the Federation’s Pamphlet B and Short
Engagement Tour Agreements (SET) are the gold standard. Pamphlet B establishes
fair conditions for musicians on the road in touring theatrical musicals, where
the shows are booked for a given number of weeks. The SET contract was
structured to cover tours where most engagements are one-nighters or run for
less than a week.