DISMEMBERING THE DISSEMBLER PARTY
LUCRATIVE RECORDING INITIATIVES ATTACKED FROM WITHIN
The ironically named Members Party is at it again. Here, from its latest newsletter, is the lie:
"As we have reported previously, Theatre Committee members have recently learned that Recording Department Supervisor Jay Schaffner has negotiated several Broadway buy-out agreements with various Broadway shows without consultation with, or ratification by, the musicians affected by them."
Here is the truth.
Our Broadway Theatre Committee in 1998 had Local 802 ask the national AFM – not me – to craft a set of non-negotiable terms under which Broadway shows could buy out the rights to use cast album tracks for promotional purposes. The AFM "promulgated agreement" requires the payment of one Industrial session fee to each musician for each session originally paid for in the production of the cast album, 10 Industrial session fees divided among the orchestrators, and 10 times the Industrial copying wage divided among the copyists.
Neither I nor anybody else "negotiated" this agreement. As one would hope our Members Party candidates on the Theatre Committee would know, promulgated agreements are written unilaterally by the union, in this case the AFM, and used by employers who opt in on a per job basis. The Broadway Cast Album Industrial Buyout Agreement was developed at the request of the rank-and-file Broadway Theatre Committee.
In 1998, our attempt to negotiate it as a conventional agreement was rejected by the producers' League on the basis that it was "too rich." But individual producers expressed interest in its terms, and the Theatre Committee saw that as an opportunity for musicians to collect substantial up-front payments that – depending on the lifespan and promotional spending of the show – would usually exceed what they would earn under existing royalty-based agreements.
The Theatre Committee was correct. Since 1998, 21 of about 80 eligible musicals have opted for the Industrial buyout of Cast Album tracks. They paid an aggregate $721,164.00 to 364 players, 28 arrangers and orchestrators and 152 copyists. Most of the 21 shows opting for this deal ran less than one full season, which means the lump-sum of just under $1,000 for a 75-minute cast album far exceeded what the musicians would have made if they were paid under the TV and Radio advertising agreement.
For eight years, musicians have been grateful for these guaranteed lump-sum payments of money that has customarily been difficult for the union to collect. Some shows, of course, have long runs, in which cases the traditional agreements would be more lucrative than the optional Industrial buyout. But we cannot have different formulas based on whether we expect the show to have a long run, and in the balance the Industrial Buyout agreement has worked to our advantage.
Finally, any current Theatre Committee members who have "recently learned" about this agreement and its origins suffer from an impaired institutional memory. The committee has been apprised of this agreement numerous times over the past eight years, and members with the requisite knowledge of recent union history know of its origins..
The Members Party Newsletter continues:
" Schaffner also recently bypassed the Executive Board by presenting key media proposals to the AFM's IEB without the Board's knowledge or approval."
That is the lie. Here is the truth.
The new media proposals referred to, for a Video Game scoring agreement, were created and presented to the AFM's International Executive Board (IEB) by Local 802's Recording Musicians' Committee. The rank-and-file committee was formed at the direction of the union’s strategic planning committee headed by President David Lennon. In its single year of existence, the Recording Musicians' Committee has engaged nearly 80 recording musicians in developing approaches for the union to attract more recording work to New York.
The committee's transparency has been exemplary.
• President David Lennon and Recording Vice-President Bill Dennison receive advance agendas and notes of each committee meeting. Development of the video game proposal has occupied the last three meetings of the Recording Musicians Committee.
• Lennon has been kept in the loop at every step in the committee's process of developing the video game proposal. Lennon's former assistant, Joe Delia, attended the committee's meetings. Lennon's current assistant, Bill Rohdin, a leader of the Members Party, attended a September committee meeting at which the video game proposal was discussed.
• Mike Comins, an editor of the Members Party newsletter, (and an MP candidate for the Executive Board), has regularly attended and participated in the committee's meetings. Comins joined the other rank-and-file recording musicians in voting to adopt the proposals, as coming from the Local 802 Recording Musicians Committee, and to present them to the International Executive Board and the Local 802 Executive Board.
• The committee elected two rank-and-file members, Dave Weiss and Scott Healy, to make these presentations, joined by me. We presented on October 31st to the IEB which voted to adopt the new agreement without a single dissenting vote.
At its weekly meeting on November 14th, Local 802's Executive Board discussed the game music initiative with members of our Recording Musicians Committee. Reports were heard, questions asked, proposals discussed. At no time during the meeting did any Executive Board members, including those who are Members Party leaders and candidates, express the view that the committee members or I had bypassed the Executive Board.
Just the latest in a succession of smears and falsehoods brought to you by the Members Party. Dishonest, or simply ignorant? Duplicitous, or simply inconsistent? We don't know, but the net result is the same.
Vote for Transparency, Trust, Change.
Vote the CONCERNED MUSICIANS OF LOCAL 802 ticket on December 5th.
In solidarity,
Jay Schaffner,
Executive Board member
Supervisor of the Local 802 Recording Department
Executive Board Candidate on the Concerned Musicians of Local 802 slate