Tag - unions

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Social media and musician activism
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Wassup in Detroit?
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The Richardson Symphony and Buddy Rich–What's the Connection
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Musician Performance Rights–Pending Legislation to Benefit Musicians
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Reinforcing The Image of the AFM– Old, Dated and Out of Touch
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The boss is the best organizer
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The Musician’s Business Challenge
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Now that's what I call a union
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The boss is the best organizer
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Let's Form a Union

Social media and musician activism

This story didn’t show up on the usual arts blogging sites, but it might well have been the most important news for our field in a while: In what labor officials and lawyers view as a ground-breaking case involving workers and social media, the National Labor Relations Board has accused a company of illegally firing[…]

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Wassup in Detroit?

The Detroit Symphony went on strike a little over four weeks ago, although negotiations broke down several weeks before that. That puts the strike clock at around 11:45PM, by normal standards – negotiations seem to begin to get serious, during an orchestra strike, after about six weeks. Why is that? Why not sooner? I think[…]

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The Richardson Symphony and Buddy Rich–What's the Connection

Some of you may be following the plight of the Richardson (Texas) Symphony Orchestra and its musicians.  They’re embroiled in a bitter dispute that has led to the RSO being placed on the International Unfair List of the American Federation of Musicians. What this means is that as long as the orchestra is on the[…]

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Musician Performance Rights–Pending Legislation to Benefit Musicians

Yesterday I received another email from AFM President Lee.  Unlike the video the previous day, which had a “please join the union message,” this one was all business.  It tells of the legislation before Congress right now that would benefit musician’s works that are played on terrestrial radio.  Here’s part of the email. One of[…]

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Reinforcing The Image of the AFM– Old, Dated and Out of Touch

Today I received an email from Thomas F. Lee the President of the American Federation of Musicians.  I suppose that it went to all AFM members for whom they have email addresses.  It begins: Dear Member RICKER: I am pleased to announce that the Federation is developing a series of videos to educate musicians and[…]

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The boss is the best organizer

It’s good to be reminded now and then of what an orchestra looks like in the wild, and why virtually every professional orchestra in the known universe is unionized: Musicians, however, look to a conductor for musical guidance, and they say [Illinois Symphony Music Director Karen Lynne] Deal simply doesn’t do enough homework to provide[…]

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The Musician’s Business Challenge

Over the next couple of weeks I’ll put on a businessman’s hat and look at a young musician’s career from that perspective.  What are the challenges facing this person as he or she steps into the profession?  One might say a musician’s challenge is to utilize and evolve the skills obtained in school in order[…]

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Now that's what I call a union

Show business can indeed pay well: After you practice for years and get to Carnegie Hall, it’s almost better to move music stands than actually play the piano. Depending on wattage, a star pianist can receive $20,000 a night at the 118-year-old hall, meaning he or she would have to perform at least 27 times[…]

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The boss is the best organizer

It’s good to be reminded now and then of what an orchestra looks like in the wild, and why virtually every professional orchestra in the known universe is unionized: Musicians, however, look to a conductor for musical guidance, and they say [Illinois Symphony Music Director Karen Lynne] Deal simply doesn’t do enough homework to provide[…]

Read More

Let's Form a Union

This past spring I received an email signed by a dozen or so Eastman students. It was sent to Eastman School jazz students and faculty. This group had met out of frustration. It seems that within the student jazz community at Eastman, there has not been much discussion or communication between them about how to[…]

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