Protecting the Right to Organize Means Better Working Conditions for Everyone

October 1, 2024

Tina Morrison  -  International Executive Board Member and President of Local 105 (Spokane, WA)

In 1998, I was a newly elected secretary-treasurer of AFM Local 105 (Spokane, WA). Our president was Jimmy Bee Nixon, a rock ‘n’ roll bassist originally from Bakersfield, California. I remember complaining to him about the unfairness musicians face in our work. I also clearly remember the sparkle of mischief and challenge in his light blue eyes and his response, “There’s no such thing as a fair fairy. That’s on us.” I’ve reflected on that conversation many times. I think it was that challenge that set me on the path I’ve been walking ever since. Rest in peace, Jimmy Bee.

My father was a bassist, and music was his part-time job. It helped pay bills and put food on the table. He told me stories about people breaking out of poverty because they were given an instrument. He was also a WWII veteran and participated in charitable organizations working toward a common good. I developed an idealistic impression that being good at making music would lead to earning a reasonable compensation. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, as freelance musicians, we both felt the wage stagnation that seemed stuck in the 1970s. I thought it was just musicians, but I learned that it was not.

Wages for many workers stagnated in the mid-1970s. Unions were in decline and most families couldn’t survive on a single income. Yet, CEO wages kept going up. Costs for products, services, health care, and housing increased over time, but wages did not keep up.

Under the administrations of Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump, nothing seemed to change, although health care became affordable for many musicians with passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010. Unions faced barriers to prevent workers from organizing and standing up to employers. They struggled to hold on until workers could get a foothold and start fighting back.

My eyes were fully opened in 2020 while serving on the AFM International Executive Board during the pandemic. Even though the AFM and our locals employed office workers and staff, and ours was one of the hardest hit industries with most work shut down for over a year, unions were not eligible for the Payroll Protection Program (PPP) under the Trump administration. It was unfair. I haven’t been able to find another employer in our industry that was not eligible to participate in PPP. The Biden administration opened the door for us.

President Biden has been the most pro-worker president in my experience. Workers finally got the foothold needed to organize and fight against corporate greed. AFM President Tino Gagliardi and Secretary-Treasurer Ken Shirk have talked about the Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan Act and its impact on the AFM and Employers’ Pension Fund (AFM-EPF). Other acts have been passed to invest in projects requiring prevailing wages, worker safety, and the use of materials made in the US. To win tech hub projects, there are requirements for business, labor, and community leaders to be at the table, which gets people working together again toward a common good.

Union strikes and worker organizing mean better wages, leading to more discretionary funds. A rebalancing of CEO income and workers’ income in other industries opens the door for more people to support musical organizations, attend concerts, and support local acts. We’re all in this together. I encourage you to join a picket line in your area and join the effort to elect Vice President Kamala Harris in November. It’s a matter of fairness and it is on us.

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