President’s Message

I am pleased to report that on November 22, after weeks of intense negotiations beginning in March of this year and continuing in October and November, an agreement was reached with major Hollywood-based film producers and their Television Film counterparts. The agreement extends the existing Theatrical and Television Motion Picture Film Agreements for two years with successive yearly 3% wage increases and other significant contract improvements, subject to ratification vote by eligible musicians.

The two-year agreement makes significant progress in key areas. First, the terms and conditions of employment applicable to musicians employed on high budget subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) programs will no longer be freely negotiable. Rather, the terms and conditions in the TV Film Agreement will apply, except that paragraph 62 of the agreement (providing a discount for the first 25 episodes of a series) will not apply to high-budget SVOD productions. Second, the producers have agreed to include screen credits for musicians on theatrical motion pictures and on high-budget SVOD programs that are 96 minutes or more in length. In addition, royalty payments to musicians for paid permanent downloads, now worth about $2.5 million per year, will be increased by 50%.

Although we were unable to attain our primary goal of realizing a meaningful residual on content made for initial exhibition on advertiser-supported streaming (AVOD) and SVOD platforms, the Federation is committed to continuing our pressure campaign toward the producers during the ensuing two-year contract interval after ratification, which I have referred to as a short-term “truce.” In my view, there will not be true labor peace between the Federation and the producers until a made-for-streaming residual is accomplished.

The Negotiating Atmosphere

In April of 2019, after meeting with the studios in March and experiencing their overwhelming inflexibility and intransigence—in effect, a refusal to negotiate—over fair residual compensation on content made for initial exhibition on streaming platforms, the Federation committed resources to hire organizers and also research personnel to partner with musicians in the television and film workplace to develop a campaign of concerted activity for improved contract compensation and working conditions, particularly where content is scored for streaming platforms. Soon thereafter, the #BandTogether campaign was launched, a member-driven program of action-oriented mobilizations designed to bring musicians’ issues to the public, to the studios, and their executives. Please see additional information about the campaign at www.bandtogetherafm.com.

BandTogether had a measurable impact on industry’s attitude towards these negotiations. Numerous demonstrations by musicians in Los Angeles, Nashville, and New York brought the campaign directly and literally to the producers’ doors. The level and intensity of rank and file engagement led producers to understand that they could not continue to impose concessions and refuse to address the concerns of the Federation, its locals, and its members against the backdrop of rapidly changing patterns in audiovisual consumption that were creating immense economic advantages for the producers, and distinct disadvantages for musicians and their families. The studios realized they had to make substantive counter-proposals across the table, on the record, that would address musicians’ well-articulated needs and priorities, in order to achieve even this short-term truce and achieve an agreement that would ratify.

Terms and Conditions for High Budget SVOD

Under the new agreement, all terms and conditions of the TV Film Agreement will apply to original and derivative dramatic programs made for initial exhibition on subscription streaming platforms when such programs meet the following budget thresholds: a) $1.3 million for a 20-35 minute program; b) $2.5 million for a 36-65 minute program; and c) $3 million for a program 66 minutes or longer. Formerly, the producers were permitted to freely negotiate wages and conditions of streaming production projects with musicians directly, which sometimes led to the imposition of conditions of employment that were below those considered to be industry standard, and thus unacceptable.

Screen Credits on Theatrical Motion Pictures and Certain High Budget SVOD Programs

For the first time in history, producers have agreed to accord screen credits to musicians employed in the scoring of theatrical motion pictures, and also for high budget SVOD productions of 96 minutes in length or more, with a budget over $30 million ($45 million for animated SVOD programs). With the proliferation of screen credits over the past four decades, and with credit given to practically everyone associated with a production except the musicians who perform the score, requiring the inclusion of scoring musicians in the credit roll of a production was one of the Federation’s top priorities.

The producers introduced a number of onerous proposals, many of which they tried and failed to achieve in the last negotiating season, that the Federation rejected and that the producers eventually withdrew.

I want to take this opportunity to offer my sincerest thanks to the many talented musicians who volunteered their time and energy on behalf of their colleagues to engage in concerted #BandTogether campaign activities, which made a real difference during these negotiations: members of the International Executive Board – International Vice President and Portland, Oregon Local 99 President Bruce Fife, Vice President From Canada Alan Willaert, Federation Secretary-Treasurer Jay Blumenthal, Executive Officer and Los Angeles Local 47 President John Acosta, Executive Officer and Nashville Local 257 President Dave Pomeroy; Recording Musicians Association International President Marc Sazer and rank and file representative Don Foster, who, together with local union officers and representatives from across the Federation, spent countless hours working to identify, articulate, and prioritize workplace issues in advance of and during the negotiations.

I would like to especially thank the small group we put together at the conclusion of negotiations—Local 47 Vice President Rick Baptist, IEB member Dave Pomeroy, RMA President Marc Sazer, and rank and file musician Jason Poss, who was such an immense help to his colleagues and to me personally during the course of the negotiations and in the organizing campaign. The concerted activities of our talented members were guided by an outstanding and committed team of organizers, led by Federation Organizing and Education Director Michael Manley, and which included Federation Lead Organizer Alex Weisendanger, Local 47 Organizer Jefferson Kemper, and other Local 47 officers and staff.

We had the benefit of superb legal representation from Federation in-house counsel Jennifer Garner and Russ Naymark, and outside counsel Susan Davis of Cohen, Weiss and Simon. Lastly, my thanks go to Electronic Media Services Division Director Pat Varriale, Assistant EMSD Director John Painting, contract administrator Matt Allen, Local 47 EMSD Director Roxanne Castillo, Federation Communications Director Rose Ryan, and all the other hardworking Federation and Local 47 officers and staff for their invaluable contributions throughout the process.

We will reconvene our negotiations with the Hollywood studios in the fall of 2021. In the meantime, we will continue our campaign of concerted activity in support of our demand for fair residual compensation for made-for-streaming programs, and for fairness in every other Federation agreement.

The Federation’s negotiations with its bargaining partners in the US and Canada, whether on an industry-wide, single- or multi-employer basis, are a never-ending process. Other than contracts with touring theatrical producers such as the Broadway League, most of our negotiations are with producers and distributors of media content when musicians are engaged to perform electronic media services, whether streamed, broadcast live, or captured for analog or digital distribution.

Our purpose is to improve the wages and conditions, health benefit and
pension contributions when we create the content exploited by the producers. We
also negotiate for additional compensation when content is re-played or re-used
in domestic and foreign analog markets, and when content is distributed
digitally by subscription video on-demand (SVOD) or advertiser-based video
on-demand services (AVOD).

Our program of collective bargaining and contract enforcement is
aggressive, and is accompanied by a member-driven program of concerted
activity, led by the Federation’s organizing department with assistance from
locals and also with financial support authorized by the International
Executive Board.

The Federation’s emphasis
in all of its media negotiations is streaming, and the potential of digital
distribution to provide new money for musicians whose services are embodied in
streaming content, and also for our residual and benefit funds. Media
consumption has transitioned away from traditional physical products such as
compact discs and DVDs toward digital formats and streaming. As a result, we
are bargaining for our digital future—concentrating on replacing musicians’
declining residual revenue from traditional physical and analog sources with
revenue from digital media distribution.

What follows is a
thumbnail sketch of negotiations and talks in progress:

Motion Picture TV
Film. Film and TV musicians are engaged in a heated campaign toward the
studios to obtain and improve industry-standard wages, conditions, and residual
payments when content is made for streaming. The Federation and the Alliance of
Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) have operated under a contract
extension (with annual wage increases) following the April 5, 2018 expiration
of the predecessor agreement.

As major film and
television studios prepare to launch their own streaming platforms, they are
refusing to bargain a fair deal for the musicians who work for them. Musicians
have traditionally received a small portion of secondary-market revenue from
the films and TV shows they work on, along with actors, writers, and directors.
But, in the production of content made for streaming, the major studios are
excluding musicians from their fair share, effectively reducing musicians’
overall pay.

The existing AMPTP agreement covers sidelining, scoring, and music preparation services for theatrical motion pictures and films made for television, whether distributed traditionally or digitally. We will continue to address these concerns when discussions reconvene on November 20 (which will occur after this issue of the IM goes to print). Please visit www.bandtogetherafm.org for the most up-to-date information on our members’ campaign for fairness in the making of content for original streaming productions.

Commercial Announcements (Jingles). The production agreement between the Federation and the Association of National Advertisers and the American Association of Advertising Agencies is set to expire on March 31, 2020. The existing agreement, negotiated in June 2014, achieved significant increases in pay and pension benefits for exhibition of online commercial announcements. However, we expect that discussions next year toward a successor agreement will necessarily focus on an uptick in the licensing of pre-existing tracks by advertisers and their agencies, which has resulted in a reduction in the production and use of new, original recordings for jingle content.

Live Television. Negotiations
began in 2016 with the TV broadcast networks for a successor agreement covering
musicians performing on all live or pre-recorded television shows, including
all late night talk shows, all variety shows such as Dancing With The Stars,
awards shows such as the Grammys, and live morning shows where guest artists
frequently appear. After five rounds of formal negotiations and additional
informal meetings spanning three years, the networks have finally begun to
address the Federation’s proposals covering streamed distribution of program
content.

Intense concerted
activity by musicians working in the TV and film scoring workplace, in an
effort to achieve fairness on streaming issues, helped open the door toward
more realistic conversations with the producers and networks on those issues.
Our next round of negotiations with the networks will occur early next year.

Pamphlet B
Agreement. The Federation’s “Pamphlet B” agreement is negotiated with
the New York City-based Broadway League and establishes wages and conditions of
employment for musicians working on the road in touring theatrical musical
productions. The contract is administered by the Federation’s Touring and
Booking Division headed by my assistant, Tino Gagliardi, and will expire March
15, 2020.

Historically, Pamphlet B
provisions cover only musicians traveling with the show. It does not set wages
and conditions for local musicians who are engaged to augment or replace
traveling musicians in the cities and jurisdictions where the shows are eventually
booked. But beginning in 1992, provisions in the contract were modified and
implemented to allow producers to restrict and reduce the allocation of work
between local musicians and touring musicians previously governed by local
collective bargaining agreements.

The tension in the distribution of touring employment and
attempts by producers to avoid hiring local musicians will again figure
prominently in our discussions. As the Federation prepares for Pamphlet B
negotiations, we will meet with stakeholders to help identify, articulate, and
prioritize our members’ needs and develop plans of action to address those
needs.

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.