NLRB Ruling Is Right on Key to Musicians’ Ears
Musicians in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Texas can play a happy tune following a Dec. 27 ruling by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that says musicians in symphony orchestras are employees with the freedom to join unions—not independent contractors.
Members of the Lancaster (Pa.) Symphony Orchestra sought to join the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada (AFM) and the union filed a petition for an election. But an NLRB regional director ruled the musicians were independent contractors and thus ineligible for union representation.
The board’s 2-1 decision reversed that ruling and sent the case back to the region for further action. Citing the Lancaster ruling, the NLRB issued decisions the following day that the musicians in the Cape Cod Symphony Orchestra and the Plano Symphony Orchestra are also employees with the right to join a union.
For more on the cases, visit the NLRB here and the Bureau of National Affairs’ Daily Labor Report (subscription required) here.
AFM Musicians Talk Career Benefits of Union Membership
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Most of the time here at AFL-CIO Now we deal with serious subjects like workers’ rights, health care, economic inequality to sometimes even wonkish matters such as currency manipulation and corporate governance rules.
But we thought if you are visiting us today in the middle of holiday season and just a couple of days before News Year’s celebrations get underway, we’d give you something different courtesy of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM).
Each month the union’s magazine—International Musician—features one of their better known members who talk about how they got started in the music business and what their union membership means to them.
Violin superstar Rachel Barton Pine told the magazine:
As a home-school assignment, I had to write a paper about the AFL-CIO, and as I was learning about the history of unions in America, I was seeing on a daily basis how the AFM was protecting us. To this day, I feel a sense of solidarity with my brothers and sisters that I’m playing with every night.
Trumka—Time for Radio to Pay the Piper and All the Musicians
AM and FM radio stations that broadcast songs over the air to your cars and homes have had a free ride for more than 80 years. They don’t have to pay the musicians and singers who make the music. A good deal for corporate radio, a bad deal for working musicians.
Legislation in Congress, the Performance Rights Act (S. 379 and H.R. 848), will make sure the band gets paid by requiring the stations to pay royalties to the performers whenever their work is aired. The bill, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, “would correct an injustice that has been 80 years in the making.” In a letter to the U.S. Senate urging passage of the legislation, he says the bill
would guarantee that performers whose work is played on AM/FM radio can finally secure the right to be compensated for their efforts. This is an issue of basic fairness for working families.
You can tell you lawmakers to support the bill by clicking here.
Buy America Will Create U.S. Jobs. We Need Lots of Jobs
The Buy America provision in the economic recovery package Congress now is finalizing has some rich and powerful voices against it.
AT&T, Dow Chemical, Cisco Systems, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, the Computer and Communications Industry Association and the Consumer Electronics Association sent a letter last week to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) saying the provision “will harm American workers and companies across the entire U.S. economy, undermine U.S. global engagement, and result in mirror-image trade restrictions abroad that would put at risk huge amounts of American exports.”
Wrong. Such cries of protectionism are red herrings for the corporate search for the lowest-wage labor possible—at the expense of America’s workers and the U.S. economy.
1,000 Machinists Approve Contract at GKN Aerospace, and More Bargaining News
Nearly 1,000 Machinists members at GKN Aerospace in St. Louis approved a new three-year contract—and more news here from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 900 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.
SETTLEMENTS
IAM, GKN Aerospace: GKN workers in the St. Louis area of Missouri, represented by the Machinists (IAM) District 837, approved a new three-year contract with the aerospace company, which provides annual 3 percent wage increases, a $1,000 bonus, higher pension benefits and increased recall rights. IAM members had previously rejected the company’s final offer and voted to strike. The main issues included the company’s proposal for a change in overtime compensation, lack of health care benefits for members hired in after GKN purchased the facilities from Boeing in 2001 and inadequate pension increases.
