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Executive Board Members, Officer Columns

AFM Representatives Participate in 21st Congress of FIM

Bruce Fife headshotby Bruce Fife, AFM International Vice President

The International Federation of Musicians (FIM) held its 21st Congress in Reykjavik, Iceland, June 7-9. Attending and representing the AFM were Vice President from Canada Alan Willaert, International Executive Board member Tino Gagliardi, and International Vice President Bruce Fife.

FIM brings together musician unions from all corners of the globe. Nearly 100 representatives came to this congress, to share, discuss,

FIM General Secretary Benoît Machuel, AFM Vice President from Canada Alan Willaert, AFM Executive Board Member and Local 802 (New York City) President Tino Gagliardi; FIM President John Smith; AFM International Vice President and Local 99 (Portland, OR) President Bruce Fife.

FIM General Secretary Benoît Machuel, AFM Vice President from Canada Alan Willaert, AFM Executive Board Member and Local 802 (New York City) President Tino Gagliardi; FIM President John Smith; AFM International Vice President and Local 99 (Portland, OR) President Bruce Fife.

debate, and act on myriad issues that affect musicians worldwide. Of particular interest to the AFM was achieving a more representative voice within the leadership of FIM in order to assure the issues that are important to our membership have the strongest possible response and input from the international community. To that end, AFM President Ray Hair was elected to the Presidium, the highest executive body of FIM, and AFM Canada also gained a seat on the FIM Executive Committee.

The Congress debated and passed a slate of timely resolutions initiated by the specific unions:

  • An exhortation to governments with whom FIM has representations to fulfill and enforce legislation protecting musicians (Uruguayan Association of Musicians)
  • Equality for women and men in the music sector (FIM African Committee)
  • Recognition of musicians as employees/protected workers, so that they have the same labor rights as other workers (French Musicians Union)
  • Work to create fair and transparent distribution of income by collective
    management organizations (British Musicians’ Union)
  • Intensify the “Fair Internet for Performers” campaign to develop additional income for performers from streaming platforms (British Musicians’ Union)
  • Work to introduce the “Agent of Change Principle” to our respective governments with the goal of protecting our vital inner-city, grass-roots live music venues (British Musicians’ Union)
  • Work to protect the music education systems of Latin America (Musicians’ Union of Rio de Janeiro)
  • Work to establish a procedure and database for identifying international airlines with good records for instrument carry-on (German Orchestra Union)
  • Create a program for the collection and shipment of musical instruments to Africa (FIM African Committee)
(L to R): Swedish Musicians Union President Jan Granvik, British Musicians Union Assistant Secretary Horace Trubridge, and AFM International Vice President Bruce Fife.

(L to R): Swedish Musicians Union President Jan Granvik, British Musicians Union Assistant Secretary Horace Trubridge, and AFM International Vice President Bruce Fife.

As you can see, the topics are ones we can relate to, or ones we have faced in one form or another, and have either resolved or continue to work on. For example, the AFM has successfully dealt with the issue of traveling with instruments in the US, but once you leave our shores, all bets are off. Also, while I believe that the defunding of our public school music programs may have bottomed out and we’re starting to move in the right direction, much of the rest of the world seems to be where we were 15 years ago, with a downward trend destroying their school music programs because of austerity measures.

There were also numerous panel presentations, one of which I participated on. A robust discussion of online music and related royalty streams with representatives from England, Sweden, Switzerland, France, Hungary, and of course, the US, focused specifically on how we get streaming money into the hands of our musicians. In many ways, the AFM is a step ahead on this issue, based on our involvement with SoundExchange and our AFM and SAG-AFTRA Fund, which were of great interest to FIM representatives.

For me, the Congress highlighted how small our world has become, how the values and hopes of musicians operating in a globalized music industry are interconnected, and most importantly, how we can benefit from hearing each others’ stories and strategizing together about our common concerns. Given our newly elected leadership in the body of FIM, the AFM will not only continue, but also increase its involvement on the world stage.

Recent News

Trump Taj Mahal to Close after Labor Day

Trump Taj Mahal, the beleaguered Atlantic City, New Jersey, hotel-casino once owned by GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, will close for good after Labor Day weekend. The Taj Mahal’s owners—including billionaire investor Carl Icahn—blame striking UNITE HERE Local 54 workers for preventing a “path to profitability.” WARN Act (layoff) notices were sent to the casino’s more than 2,400 workers announcing they would lose their jobs October 10. The Taj would be the city’s fifth casino to close since 2014.

A thousand of the casino’s service workers have been on strike since July 1. According to Local 54 President Bob McDevitt, “For a few million bucks, [Icahn] could have had labor peace and a content workforce, but instead he’d rather slam the door shut on these long-term workers just to punish them and attempt to break their strike.”

In a statement, McDevitt called out Icahn for his promise to put $100 million into the Trump Taj Mahal. “He told the workers they were the most important asset of the property. Now, rather than negotiate with those same workers, he decided he would rather close down. We have not had an offer from Icahn since the evening of June 30, when workers rejected that proposal and voted to strike. It has been nothing but the usual my way or the highway from Carl Icahn. That’s not trying to reach an agreement; that’s punishing working people for standing up to injustice.

Recent News

Southwest Airlines Flight Attendants Picket Love Field

Pilots, mechanics, ramp workers, and flight attendants picketed Southwest Airline’s Dallas Love Field home base, calling for the replacement of CEO Gary Kelly and COO Mike Van de Ven, following July’s system-wide technical outage that disrupted thousands of flights and left flight attendants stranded at airports. Workers’ unions are critical of current management for not adequately investing in the company’s operations and putting the needs of shareholders ahead of employees during a time of record profitability.

“The recent technical outage was kind of the last straw for us,” says Audrey Stone, president of Transport Workers Union Local 556, which organized the picket. Several unions have been attempting to negotiate new contracts with Southwest for almost four years. Aside from financial issues, the negotiations center on quality of life issues—scheduling, length of workdays, and vacation.

The Love Field picket coincided with demonstrations at other Southwest crew bases, including airports in Houston, Chicago, Denver, Atlanta, Baltimore, Las Vegas, Oakland, and Orlando.

Recent News

Bakers End 50-Year Business Relationship with Wells Fargo

Oregon and Washington unions are under attack by the Freedom Foundation, a business-funded organization targeting government employee unions. The anti-union group has filed numerous lawsuits against unions and has campaigned vigorously to get workers to drop union membership, even producing a weekly anti-union radio show.  

One of the group’s largest funders is Vancouver-based M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust, led by three trustees, one of whom is Wells Fargo senior executive Jeffrey T. Grubb.

In a counter move, the union established Northwest Accountability Project, which has publicly criticized Murdock, a big funder of other right-wing groups such as the anti-gay-rights legal group, Alliance Defending Freedom.  

In his rebuke to Wells Fargo, Local 114 Secretary-Treasurer Terry Lansing says, “We feel strongly that Mr. Grubb’s support for these groups, through his paid role as one of three trustees, undermines many of the values we hold dear as labor activists in the Pacific Northwest.” Opened in 1963, the union’s Wells Fargo account has now been transferred to IBEW and United Workers Federal Credit Union.

Recent News

Union President Says American Airlines Pushing Limits

The president of American Airlines’ pilots union says he’s alarmed by a new management initiative to speed up some flight plans, stating in a letter to union members that it could “compromise the margin of safety.” Some of the union’s pilots report flight plan manipulation to keep crews under Federal Aviation Administration caps that restrict time spent on duty, a practice called “pilot pushing.”

Capt. Dan Carey, newly elected president of the Allied Pilots Association, says American Airlines’ operations are clearly over-scheduled. He alleges management is now resorting to improvisation and cautions that pilot pushing leads to “rush to comply” behavior. This includes instructing pilots to increase air speeds, including in some cases where there is forecasted turbulence, using different flight routing, and decreasing taxi times by using paths and speeds that deviate from “what would normally be considered rational.”

American Airlines refuted the claim, noting that any attempts to speed up flight plans are done within federal limits and with the consent of the plane’s captain.  

 

Officer Columns, President's Message

100th Convention: A Union that Is Stronger Together

120 years after our founding Convention in October 1896 in Indianapolis, Indiana, the Federation convened its 100th Convention—a milestone for any union—June 20 in Las Vegas. With more than a century of advocacy and 100 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. Continue reading →

Member Profiles

The Ring of Success: A Career in Jingles Keeps Annagrey in Business

Annagrey of Local 72-147 (Dallas-Ft Worth, TX)

Annagrey of Local 72-147
(Dallas-Ft Worth, TX)

Singing jingles—the ubiquitous refrain on the radio that usually gets stuck in your head—is serious business. Local 72-147 (Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX) member Annagrey Wiechman, who now goes by the mononym Annagrey, landed her first jingle for Lays Potato Chips at just 14 years old. At 18, she was singing at a wedding when she was discovered by producer Otis Conners.

Now 45, Annagrey has done radio identification and advertising packages for home builders, cheese, dog and cat food, doctors, and a lot of car commercials. There are no sure-fire formulas for success in the industry, but her distinctive voice has secured gig after gig. Nearly 30 years after her first commercial, she’s surprised by her own success.

Right around the time the Broadway musical Annie came out, with Andrea McArdle of Local 802 (New York City), Annagrey decided she wanted to become a singer. She was in seventh grade when the young star inspired her. Annagrey eventually attended the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.

In the jingle world, art and advertising coexist to meet a particular need. In this case, Annagrey’s career singing jingles allows her to compose her own songs and do solo work. “One feeds the other. After a long session of singing call letters, that’s usually when I like to write my own music. It’s therapy, detox from jingles,” she continues. “You spend four hours using your voice—and emoting. It’s all about the sound and the emotion, but you’re not saying words that are emotional.”

Jingling requires talent and tremendous vocal agility. Being able to calibrate one’s voice, knowing which words to emphasize, not only takes practice but plenty of experience. Within the commercial, the cadence, the perceived emotion must all be readily accessible. In other words, it takes acting ability.

In the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s the jingles sound was more of an ensemble sound, a chorus—think “Buy the World a Coke”—which eventually morphed into a solo sound, with unique voices instantly recognizable. Annagrey says, “I feel like I’ve become one of those voices, and I’m proud of it. To do live work is fun, and jingles has been a great living. I honestly love to sing jingles.”

Annagrey was doing jingles at Rosewood Studios when producers for LeAnn Rimes heard her singing and they asked her to do backup. Since then, she’s also done backup singing for pop artist and Local 257 (Nashville, TN) member Meghan Trainor. She was on The Oprah Winfrey Show as part of the Pop Star Challenge, competing on three episodes, and finishing as a finalist. 

A regular lounge singer, who also plays with bands and artists around the region, Annagrey says, “I love the fact that I can take an old, old song and almost remake it. It’s like singing a brand new song. It’s been cool to experiment with songs that I’ve been singing since I was seven years old. It feels fresh because there’s a different style. I can add a little bit of jazz or blues, even classical music.”

Annagrey’s influences are as diverse as her vocal range: Billy Holiday, Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder of Local 5 (Detroit, MI), Robert Plant, Celine Dion, Carly Simon, and Joni Mitchell of Local 47 (Los Angeles, CA). Vocally, she evokes Etta James and Norah Jones. With three CDs to her credit, she has covered and written songs that showcase an array of styles, from country to funk.

“As long as it’s from the heart,” Annagrey says, “Sometimes it’s jazzy, sometimes it’s bluesy, or straight out rock ‘n’ roll!”

Executive Board Members, Officer Columns

When We Fight, We Win!

john-Acosta-colorby John Acosta, AFM IEB Member and President of Local 47 (Los Angeles, CA)

It is with great humility and a renewed sense of purpose that I begin this message to you as a newly elected member of the AFM International Executive Board. I would be remiss if I did not take this opportunity to thank all of the delegates who supported my candidacy. I pledge to work on behalf of all locals, whether large or small, and all constituencies, be they symphonic or recording, freelance, or somewhere in between.

In thinking about what would be the proper message for my first IM communication to you, I asked myself, what are some of the biggest challenges facing our union today? The answer may vary from local to local, but the three issues that I believe are consistent across our Federation are: loss of membership, diminished and reduced employment opportunities, and apathy. The phenomenon we see throughout the Federation as our older musicians pass on, is not recruiting new members at the same pace as we lose our seniors. I see this trend at Local 47, even with ongoing programs to attract new members and efforts to bring new work under contract.

I am convinced that success in growing our union lies in organizing. We will only grow through internal and external organizing—building upon the ranks of existing members and organizing potential members. What does this mean? For me, it means working with our committees and rank-and-file leaders to strengthen bargaining units in order to fight the growth of nonunion work, whether in the recording realm, classical chamber music, or jazz gigs. Each negotiation is an opportunity to organize by bringing together the union and committees and working to identify the concerns of our members and formulate the best possible responses.

We see attacks in every sector of our industry. In regional orchestras, we see management chipping away at our employment by reducing orchestra size, displacing union members with students, or proposing major rollbacks at the bargaining table. It is essential to build a committed membership in order to fight the growth of nonunion work and fight back attempts to erode our agreements, local
and national.

Across our entire employment spectrum, musicians face wage and benefit theft through misclassification. Whether it’s being classified as an independent contractor—which denies our members their rights to unemployment compensation, social security benefits, and workers compensation—or being paid “off contract” for a recording that ends up being played far and wide, depriving musicians of new use payments and  health and pension contributions, strong rank-and-file leadership is essential.

With strong committees and focused leadership, we will speak musician to musician about the type of legacy we wish to build today in order for AFM members, present and future, to earn a fair salary, feed their families, and put away a decent retirement. If we come together for this common purpose and fight for what we believe, we will win!

Recent News

Farm Workers Aren’t Free

Freedom to come together and negotiate in a union is even more important when it comes to migrant farm workers. Fear of retaliation on farms in the US is so widespread. Farm bosses know they can bring people in to work, treat them poorly, deny those who stand up for their rights a visa for next season, and in that way, keep them “in line.”

One recent and disturbing case is Jose Alberto who worked at the farm of North Carolina Senator Brent Jackson for four years. After he accidently broke a piece of equipment, he was fired for refusing to pay for it and evicted from his housing. When he and six other workers filed a lawsuit against Jackson Farming Company for unpaid wages and Alberto’s unjust firing, a farm employee called them at their homes in Mexico and threatened them. None have been offered farm jobs this season.

Visit: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/stop-the-retaliation-of-farm-workers-at-jackson-farming-company-2?source=blog to send an e-mail to state senator of North Carolina and owner of Jackson Farming Co., Brent Jackson, and tell him to stop the retaliation, rehire blacklisted and fired workers, and allow employees to negotiate together to create a better workplace.

kraftwerk
Officer Columns, Vice President from Canada

Devastating Decision by German Courts

A 19-year-long copyright suit filed by the German e-music pioneer band Kraftwerk for infringement against Sabrina Setlur, has been decided, and the result is not good news for the community of creators. Kraftwerk’s Ralf Huetter had previously obtained a court order to suppress Setlur’s 1997 song “Nur mir,” insisting that it contained a drum sequence looped from Kraftwerk’s 1977 “Metall auf Metall.”

The court found that sampling was a basis for, and helped create hip-hop music, and that if the sample’s effect on the rights holder is negligible, then artistic freedom should override the interest of the copyright owner. The German constitutional court further acknowledged sampling to be a “style-defining element” of hip-hop, and therefore overturned the previous court verdict that was in Kraftwerk’s favour.

It went on to note that imposing royalties on composers could be crippling, if copyright owners were allowed to demand any amount, or simply reject the usage request. The court held that composers should be allowed to create without any financial risks or restrictions to the creative process. Therefore, sampling would be permitted, if it is part of a new composition that does not stand in direct competition to the sampled work, and does not damage the copyright owner financially.

kraftwerkThe ruling, which sets a dangerous precedent for copyright owners worldwide, is interesting as it bastardized the 1967 Berne Convention three-step test, which states that a signatory country may allow an exception to the rules against reproduction only 1) in certain special cases, provided that 2) such reproduction does not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work, and 3) does not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the author. Certainly, one cannot argue that widespread sampling of music constitutes a “special case.” I, for one, disagree with the German court’s decision.

The Berne three-step test is widely referenced in other international agreements, such as the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Copyright Treaty (WCT) Article 10, the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT), the EU Computer Programs Directive (Article 6(3)), the EU Database Directive (Article 6(3)), and the EU Copyright Directive (Article 5(5)). The test is applied to provide for exceptions to audiovisual recordings as well as literary works.

Update on the CBC Negotiations

During the last round of negotiations, the CFM bargaining team and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) negotiators, agreed to suspend bargaining and enter into a six-month extension of the current agreement. It was felt that more research was required to determine the direction, and forecasted amount of production planned by the CBC for the future, in order to properly structure language and fees.

In addition, the CFM felt that the extension would allow for some of the liberal government’s promised infusion of
$850 million to filter into the system, which would dramatically change the landscape in terms of the CBC’s vision of being a “content provider,” and allow for better adherence to the national broadcaster’s mandate. There will be more news on this at a later date.