More school-aged children nationwide will have access to music and the arts, thanks to Congress’ inclusion of both as part of a well-rounded education in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The Senate passed the Every Student Succeeds Act December 9 with a vote of 85 to 12. It now heads to the President’s desk for signing in the next few days.

In addition to explicitly listing music in the components of a well-rounded education, the bill also protects students’ “music” and “arts” class time and provides new opportunities for music and arts education through formula funding grants. The National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM), hundreds of NAMM members, and music industry leaders have spent years meeting with Congressional leaders on the importance of every child having access to music in schools. By passage of this act, Congress has shown that it too believes in music as part of a well-rounded education that should be available to all students.

The reauthorization of the Every Student Succeeds Act replaces the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act. The new bill’s inclusion of music and arts in the definition of a “well-rounded education” marks an unprecedented step forward for music education, as it connects to a variety of significant other provisions in Every Student Succeeds Act.

This year will have the US Supreme Court looking at a case that goes to the heart of public sector workers’ ability to unionize and lobby for standards that protect every American. The case of Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association (CTA) focuses on a lawsuit that seeks to destroy public-sector unions by attacking their funding model. Rebecca Friedrichs and nine other nonunion teachers in California are challenging the law that requires them to pay their fair share, via agency fees, of the cost of services that the union is required by law to provide to all workers covered by a collective bargaining agreement (CBA).

Behind the scenes, the Center for Individual Rights, a law firm that has received millions of dollars in funding from conservative foundations, is bankrolling the case. Right-wing operatives, intent on destroying unions and the rights they have won for teachers and other workers, are using this litigation to drive a national policy change to benefit corporate CEOs and wealthy special interests.

The Friedrichs plaintiffs would make unionization harder for everyone by allowing some employees to shirk their fair share of the fees that support negotiations. If they get their way, they will receive the benefits of a union negotiating on their behalf without helping to pay their fair share to cover the costs of that work.

The truth is that public service worker unions benefit everyone in the workplace. It is only through the power of negotiating together that we are able to make sure working people earn wages and benefits that support their families, and are able to make improvements to more effectively do their jobs. Through strength in numbers—coming together and speaking with one voice—we all benefit.

The benefits of unions speaking together, especially in the public sector, extend far beyond the workplace. A Supreme Court ruling that goes against the unions could affect public safety standards across the US. First responders—police, firefighters, EMS, and others—won’t be able to negotiate for life-saving equipment and shorter response times. Nurses won’t be able to push for better nurse-to-patient rations, and likewise, social workers won’t be able to lobby for smaller caseloads. And at the heart of this case, teachers will lose the ability to negotiate for smaller class sizes and improved educational standards. The case could eliminate protections for whistle-blowers who work in food safety or speak out against toxic chemicals polluting our air and water.

I’m personally hoping that when the Supreme Court justices hear this case they keep in mind the protections that have been built through years of organizing, as well as the heroism of our public sector workers.

On December 15 more than 50 AFM Local 47 (Los Angeles, CA) members, members of several other unions, and other supporters demonstrated against “the exploitation of musicians” outside the Warner Bros. The group distributed leaflets objecting to the studio’s facilitation of nonunion activity on its property by permitting a nonunion “dark” date by Cinema Scoring, an employer with whom AFM Local 47 has a labor dispute.

The union discovered evidence the dark scoring session conducted in November. In June, at the request of the union, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor had authorized strike sanction against three music employers—Cinema Scoring, Collective Media Guild, and Peter Rotter Music Services—based on their actual and/or potential engagement of musicians in nonunion recording sessions. The strike sanction calls for all AFL-CIO-affiliated labor unions to stand in solidarity with AFM Local 47 and not cross the picket line, if and when these employers call a nonunion engagement. This is the first time the musicians union has taken this unique approach by invoking the collective power of the labor community.

News of the dark date also prompted swift reaction from the union’s labor and community allies. Los Angeles County Federation of Labor Executive Secretary-Treasurer Rusty Hicks and local state assembly members Adrin Nazarian, Mike Gatto, and Ian Calderon sent letters to Warner Bros. executives condemning the studio’s facilitation of nonunion activity on their lot and offering safe haven for employers to exploit musicians.

“By allowing sub-standard working conditions on your scoring stages, it undermines the future careers of the next generation of professional musicians,” Nazarian wrote. “Further, it negatively impacts entire communities by devaluating the livelihoods of musicians who contribute to the economic and educational well-being of our neighborhood.”

“By enabling nonunion scoring sessions on their lot—whether through rental of its facilities or otherwise—Warner Bros. is creating a safe haven for the exploitation of musicians where they are denied fair industry-standard wages, conditions of employment, and benefits afforded to all other crew on the very same stage who are protected by union contracts,” AFM Local 47 President John Acosta says.

As 2015 comes to a close, the Future of Music Coalition announced some positive news for musicians and music fans within the omnibus appropriations bill:

• Net Neutrality is safe for now. Despite hard lobbying by companies like Verizon and Comcast, provisions to keep the FCC from enforcing its Open Internet Order didn’t make it into the bill.
• The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) was gifted line-item budget increase, bringing their total coffer to $148 million. (Arts advocates had argued for a $155 million budget as we approach the NEA’s 50th Anniversary.)
• Contained in the bill is a small boost for arts education.

For more information about these end of the year “wins” read the full article at http://futureofmusic.org/blog/2015/12/16/good-news-congress-net-neutrality-artsfunding.

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According to USA Today, European regulators are investigating McDonald’s to determine if McDonald’s was given an unfair tax advantage by Luxembourg in breach of European Union state aid rules. US and European labor groups joined anti-poverty organization War on Want in issuing a report last February accusing McDonald’s of deliberately avoiding more than $1 billion in European corporate taxes from 2009 to 2013. The report contends that the company channeled royalty payments in a small Luxembourg-based subsidiary with a Swiss branch. The Luxembourg entity registered cumulative revenue of more than $3.2 billion during that period, yet paid only $16.9 million in taxes.

“For too long, McDonald’s has stashed billions in tax havens and ducked contributing to state coffers while simultaneously imposing poverty wages on its workers. McDonald’s has a clear record of mistreating workers and communities virtually everywhere it operates, and it’s time that the company be held accountable,” said Scott Courtney, organizing director of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

“The purpose of double taxation treaties between countries is to avoid double taxation—not to justify nontaxation,” says Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission’s competition commissioner. The EU has been cracking down on sweetheart tax deals for US multinational corporations and has also recently looked into the tax affairs of Apple, Amazon, Starbucks, and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.

For the last several years, artists have had to accept constant video recording and photo taking by fans during concerts. A new startup, Yondr, has created a device that will automatically lock these devices once the concertgoers enter the “no-phone zone” of a show. The app is already being used in a number of San Francisco venues.

Cage’s famous “4’33” is a three-movement composition that instructs the orchestra not to play for its duration. The idea is that the “music” comes from the ambient sounds of the room. When Berlin-based producer DJ Detweiler uploaded a “remix” of the silent track to “SoundCloud,” it was almost immediately flagged by the music hosting site’s automatic content protection system and removed. Detweiler received a message that the track “may contain copyrighted content.” Detweiler later confessed that he had baited SoundCloud’s censors.