About Error Messages

Apparently, and when we weren't looking, the error message funny business was fixed by our web host.

If you miss seeing our original note about those messages, it is still visible on the temporary archive page.

Link page coming soon. For now, we'll place good ones here as we get a chance. Here's an essential one:

The Association for Union Democracy

Editor: Lou Barranti
Typing by Miss Blogstein

Happy Birthday, Maribeth!

Updated Contact Information

(February 2005)

On account of all the spam, we have removed the e-mail links and replaced them with spelled out e-mail addresses. No doubt you've seen this sort of thing on other sites before: just replace the red "at" with the symbol "@" (no quotation marks, of course) and the red "dot" with a "." - no spaces, please, - and your missive should be on its way to our new editorial offices.

Contact UnionMuse:

editor at unionmuse dot com

Alternate UnionMuse e-mail address:

unionmuse at earthlink dot net

All content ©2004, UnionMuse

(The main page as it appeared March 4 may be seen by clicking here.)

Click here for the March 12 message from SSD

Friday, August 27, 2004

"Daddy, they're not going to say 'Please Stand By,' again, are they?"

Thursday, May 20, 2004

My Personal Trust Fund

Small potatoes, but potatoes nevertheless

Officers of AFM Local 595, Vineland, New Jersey

Joseph Janetta, President
Carmen Galzerano, Vice President
Angela Janetta, Secretary-Treasurer
Ferdinand Galzerano
Joseph Delessandro

Leaders of MPTF jobs connected with Local 595, as of May 19, 2004

(Leader name followed by number of engagements scheduled)

C Galzerano (1)
G Galzerano (2)
J Janetta (2)
F Galzerano (1)
Ron Bascone (1)
R Bruno (1)
J Clark (1)

It seems quite possible that C. Galzerano and G. Galzerano are the same person, and that the Fund’s website merely contains several typos. The AFM database lists three musicians with that last name, all members of Local 595, none of whose first initials is G. If C and G are two different people, then G may just be a relative, unless there are unrelated Galzeranos in the neighborhood. Whoever G. Galzerano is, he or she will lead two of the nine local concerts so far listed as being sponsored by the Fund.

If C. and G. Galzerano are the same person, then it appears that two thirds of (what we’re still going to refer to as) the Trust Fund jobs in Local 595, a Local of 116 members*, will be led by the elected officers of that Local.

* according to the AFM's not-as-reliable-as-it-ought-to-be membership database

(sources: AFM website and database, Music Performance [Deleted] Fund website)

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Commitment, or something

(Slightly off topic: the text of an actual note, sent today to an actual middle school band director, from an actual parent of an actual student musician)

Dear Mrs. Alexander,

Please excuse Ryan from the concert tonight. He has a baseball game.

He'll be at the concert if it rains.

 

Saturday, May 1, 2004

Department of Missing Critical Details

Under the headline, "Local 136 Rebuilds Under Trying Circumstances," the May issue of the International Musician carries an article about the trials, tribulations and good old American can-do spirit of the AFM local in Charleston, West Virginia. Graced with the usual wretched prose, the article tells the heartwarming tale of the local's recovery from financial (and other) near ruin.

The piece begins:

Sometimes AFM local offices go through trying circumstances -- and sometimes they come out of them stronger than they were before. Local 136 (Charleston, WV) is a perfect example. According to current President Brad Bradley, the past three years have been among the most difficult in the local's history. He says officers and members made it through with flying colors thanks to a positive attitude, innovation, and just plain old hard work.

Bradley assumed the presidency of Local 136 in 2002, inheriting a legacy of serious financial disarray, which had accumulated over the previous decade. "We quickly began to realize that the cumulative damage over the years was not only financial but also extended to our reputation," says Bradley. "We owed the Federation a considerable amount of money, and we also owed every government tax organization."

Dear Editor:

Perhaps THIS will refresh your memory...

* Oops! So sorry. That just slipped out. Now we're really going to have to tell you that story about the Akron Local.

Wednesday, April 21, 2004

1. Cleveland Local returns ABT musician's money.

2. A clarification to the Local 4 THUGS story.

3. That Akron story... (No, really; there IS an Akron story.)

4. Another New Jersey Local's Officers help themselves to MP(T)F money.

It makes sense that the fund eliminated the "Trust" part of its name, doesn't it? Based on our experiences at outdoor concerts in many small locals, we think they should eliminate the "Music" part, also.

Live Music is, well.... live.

5. And, speaking of New Jersey clowns...

As soon as we reinstall some software that mysteriously vanished during what computer people laughingly call an "upgrade," we will scan and post a document sent to us earlier this week. It concerns the case of the musician deprived of his summer work because another musician was willing to attend free rehearsals. In the letter, the band's Director, who is also a Local Officer/MPTF Administrator, defends himself by coming up with a DIFFERENT reason (for not hiring the musician) than the one originally stated. Now it seems the musician just isn't good enough.

Coward.

If an EMPLOYER pulled this kind of crap, the union would scream bloody... (oh, wait...)

There's been a further delay in posting new material, while our advocacy department researches a few not so small matters. The promised piece on Local 24 funny business (it's rather brief, and likely to seem anticlimactic after all this time), plus a few other short subjects, will be here when we've more than a moment to organize what's on our desk.

It should be soon, but don't wait up.

Thank you for continuing to visit during the latest unannounced hiatus.

It's days overdue, but we've a new short piece (part of the THUGS trilogy) nearly ready. Please check back later.

I. Creative Recruitment in Northeast Ohio (completely revised)

On Sunday we wrote that one of the UnionMuse editor's New York colleagues, the concertmaster of American Ballet Theatre, had his pocket picked last week while the company was in Cleveland. He was forced to join Local 4 in order to be allowed play the company's engagement at Playhouse Square's State Theater.

We later learned that the company pianist was also treated to the local's hospitality.

The two musicians received the union's kind invitation just days before traveling to Cleveland.

Though they found the demand unusual, they complied, trusting that if the musicians union said it was so, it must be so.

They each paid one quarter's dues to the local. The engagement lasted only four days, plus a few days of rehearsal.

We do so hate to get technical, but under United States labor law (effective, last we checked, in Cleveland), and in every industry except construction, a new employee is entitled to a thirty day grace period prior to being required to join (or otherwise pay fees to) a union. And the employee would have to make those payments to the union only if still employed by the same employer at the end of the grace period.

Furthermore, and we hate to be not only technical, but picky, the above is true only if there is a Collective Bargaining Agreement in effect that contains a LAWFUL union security clause (about which more later).

And, though we're being even more persnickety in bringing up this minor point, and though it's terribly obvious and should not need not be mentioned, if one is not obligated to pay dues for the first thirty days on the job, one need not pay dues for any period prior to having become employed in the first instance.

As all of this obviously would present obstacles to efficient member recruitment, Local 4 had the brilliant idea to allow our friends to join the union up front and have the grace period after the engagement ended.

We are sorry to add that there is a further, minor, technical complication.

If our friends do not resign from Local 4 by March 31, the end of the quarter for which they were assessed dues improperly, unfairly and unlawfully (there we go again), they will be suspended from membership and will be liable to pay dues for the second quarter if they want to put themselves in good standing, even if only to resign properly at that time.

The local did not see fit to tell them this. Perhaps they will automatically be removed from the membership rolls in good standing at the end of the month, though there doesn't seem to be any bylaw that would provide for such a thing.

Since the demand that they join the union was improper and illegal in the first place, and their membership was not voluntary, but coerced, we are certain that Local 4 will find a creative way to see that both players are removed from the membership rolls and their money returned to them immediately.

The ABT incident was not the first time in recent memory that the local's outreach team visited Playhouse Square.

Last year, for example, during the run of a traveling musical, Local 4 President Don Santa-Emma entered the pit of the same theater five minutes before curtain and ordered the concertmaster of that show (a member of Local 4) to leave the pit. Santa-Emma told the musician he was behind in his dues and would not be allowed to play until he paid up. The musician would not leave, and Santa-Emma made an unpleasant scene in front of the orchestra and the audience.

Exactly how far that musician was behind in his dues payments has been disputed by the Local 4 president, see sidebar. Our main point, however, is not the length of time, nor whether, for that matter, that musician owed any dues at all. But it is the fact that the local president saw fit to to use a clumsy, and illegal, method to enforce union security, by entering the work place and trying to make the employee leave the job.

Completely revised, March 17, 2004

II. Taft-Hartley Also Repealed in D.C.

Closed Shop Flourishes on Gafford's Watch

We considered prefacing the above item about forced membership in the Cleveland Federation of Musicians with a statement to the effect that such coercion most certainly is not exclusive to that city's AFM local, but we thought we would wait until we had some contemporary examples in hand to illustrate our point.

Sometimes all one has to do is wait a day...

As readers might imagine, it was no particular surprise that when we spoke with the ABT company pianist the other evening, we learned that Local 4 was not the only AFM local to hold her up on the current tour.

Operatives from the D.C. local got to her in February.

She was not an AFM member at the time, and Local 161-710 insisted that she join immediately. The company was in Washington for only six performances.

They billed her $211 for the privilege (AFM initiation fee, $65; local initiation fee, $110; one quarter's dues, $36). Plus work dues, of course.

Once again, as in Cleveland, she was denied a grace period. Therefore, she paid dues not only for the grace period, but for a period of time during which she was not yet employed in D.C. As in Cleveland, her membership will expire on March 31, at which time she will be automatically suspended if she does not formally resign, a fact that she was not made aware of at the time.

But Local 161-710 crossed yet another legal line (as did Local 4, a fact we did not mention in the earlier story): they not only did not inform the musician that she was entitled to a grace period, they did not tell her that she had the option of not becoming a full member of the union. Unions (and many members) find the latter legal option a great annoyance. But legal option it is, and failure to offer it to new employees guarantees being set straight by the National Labor Relations Board.

Should it come to that.

The NLRB might also be happy to explain to the nice local officers the concept of a grace period.

The Secretary-Treasurer of the Washington, DC local is none other than Theresa Gafford, consort to the AFM President, Tom Lee. If Gafford doesn't know how this union security thing works, Lee must have forgotten to tell her when she took over his old job.

Or maybe she just doesn't know what's going on over at Kennedy Center.

No matter.

If it comes down to someone filing an unfair labor practice charge with the Labor Board, the paperwork will land on her desk.

Then for certain she'll know what's going on.

(Next - possibly last and best - in the current series: Local 24's novel approach to union security and bylaw enforcement.)

Until we reorganize the main page, or the housekeeping department is otherwise inspired, the March 12 message from SSD is located here.

UnionMuse Main Page as of March 4 (temporary location, do not bookmark this link)

page revised July 26, 2004