Unions Make A Difference

How many of you know the music of Bare Naked Ladies? Santana? Or recognize the name Tom Hanks? Or Julia Roberts? They all have something in common — they are union members. Bare Naked Ladies and Santana are members of AFM, while Tom and Julia are members of the Screen Actors’ Guild. Both of these unions are members of the AFL-CIO and affiliate/members of the Department for Professional Employees. These musicians and performers benefit from the union difference. Today, I want to tell you how unions make a difference in the lives of workers.

Unions working together can make a difference. Before unions, people worked twelve-hour days, seven days a week without a minimum wage, health insurance, sick leave, or paid vacation. Before child labor laws, it was legal for seven-year-olds to work those twelve-hour days. In 1886, the American Federation of Labor formed with Samuel Gompers as its president. The founders proposed to civilize the industrial/social jungle and humanize laws through systematic legislative and political action. When asked "What does labor want?" Gompers replied, "We want more school houses and less jails, more books and less arsenals, more learning and less vice, more constant work and less crime, more leisure and less greed, more justice and less revenge." The AFL's slogan was "Eight hours for work, eight hours for recreation, eight hours for sleep."

In 1912, in Lawrence, MA, the Massachusetts State Legislature ordered a reduction in the work-week from 56 to 54 hours. After that order, more than 20,000 workers [mostly women] went on strike against the American Woolen Mill. The employer wanted to reduce wages. The workers did not. Their slogan was "Not by bread alone." The picketers held signs that read, "We want bread and roses, too, not just better wages, but a return of human dignity as well."

For more than 100 years, unions have worked to create that better workplace and a better world. Unions have fought long and hard to bring the work-week down to today's 40-hour week which, in essence, gave workers a weekend. Unions worked for child labor laws, medical insurance, annual leave, sick leave, parental leave, vacation, pensions, and a safer work place. Workers want job security with a living wage that provides a better life for their families. Today, unions continue the fight. For example, union members earn more money than non-union members and yet we work to increase the minimum wage. Why? Because it is the right thing to do.

DPE is part of the AFL-CIO. DPE is a constitutional department of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Chartered in 1977 in recognition of the dramatic rise in professional, technical and administrative employees among union members, we represent 23 affiliated national and international unions comprising over four million white collar workers.

DPE affiliate unions include every major professional and technical occupation including musicians; performing and visual artists; engineers and scientists; journalists, writers; teachers and university professors; nurses, doctors and other health professionals; computer specialists, social workers, librarians, professional athletes, cinematographers and many more. These workers have special concerns addressed through union representation, collective bargaining, international activity and the legislative process. The American Federation of Musicians is one of our affiliates, as well as American Guild of Musical Artists, Screen Actors’ Guild, and Writers Guild of America, East.

Our Department focuses on the needs of professional and technical workers providing a focal point within organized labor for reviewing and analyzing new developments; sponsoring work-shops, seminars and conferences; as well as conducting research and publishing reports. DPE officers and staff work with government, international agencies and with foreign labor organizations on issues of special importance to its affiliates and their members. In recent years these issues have ranged from protecting intellectual property for America's creative workers to promoting quality training and education that is needed in the professions and the occupations of today and tomorrow. It is our hope that as the number of professional, technical and administrative workers grows, their unions grow as well and, by working together in unions, their opportunities to contribute to a better America increase.

What you have learned about unions probably came from the movie Hoffa. While that is part of our history, so are films like Salt of the Earth, Norma Rae, and Matewan.

Unions reaching out to students can make a difference. College students are important for the future of the labor movement. Over 16 million students are enrolled in community colleges, four-year institutions and universities. Most of them are preparing for employment in the various professional and technical fields.

Generally, students have little understanding of what unions do or how they work to improve the status of the professions or help individuals achieve career goals. That is a fault of the labor movement. However, AFM is taking the lead with this conference by giving you a better understanding of how the music industry works.

Performing artists face working conditions characterized by no security, sporadic employment, multiple employers, low income, intense competition and frequent rejection -- as well as excitement and glamour and, occasionally, fame and rich rewards. Musicians experience widely divergent earnings, with symphony orchestras paying between $22,000 and $100,000 in the 1999-2000 season. By 2008, employment projections for musicians will reach 314,000, up from 273,000 in 1998.

• Technological changes in the entertainment industries have had disparate effects on performing artists, creating new job opportunities and increased income for some, while destroying the careers of others. Through their unions, musicians are devising creative ways to adapt to these technologies while protecting their professions and themselves.
• The DPE Education Task Force recommended a College Outreach Program. It would: 1) Reach out to students on college campuses; 2) Improve communications with professionals and the general public in order to promote a better understanding of unions as representatives and champions of professionals; and 3) Assist our affiliates in building relationships with non-union professional organizations.
• In 1999, a pilot program in music was launched at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. The program created a discipline-based, student organization that met periodically throughout the school year under the guidance of an American Federation of Teachers-designated faculty advisor. In that first year, a special program was presented on campus that featured a panel of four prominent full-time professional musicians representing different categories of musical employment. The following year, the plan was replicated. Students engaged in activities that introduced them to the value of union representation within their disciplines. They connected with union members active in the professions they seek to enter. They learned how unions support them in their careers. With this new understanding of unions and the work they do, students came to appreciate the difference made by unions

AFM has taken the College Outreach program to the next level. This conference is their way of bringing students together with professional musicians to understand more about the music business. AFM President Steve Young says, "the union has something in common with music in that it is always both tradition and change." Union incorporates the past as it moves forward.

Today, young musicians are being taught how to play but not how to make a living at music. They need to know that AFM membership protects the rights of musicians. They need to know that AFM established a scale for musician pay. Without that bottom line, pay would be lower.

AFM and DPE work together in other ways too…

Unions advocating for issues can make a difference. AFM and DPE work as advocates on behalf of union members with the U.S. Congress, state legislatures and local government. The presence of unions in the legislative process serves to safeguard existing worker protection laws, advance new, pro-worker initiatives and act as a counterbalance to the power of corporate America at all levels of government. A good example of this work is the successful effort of Alphonso Pollard, the AFM's national legislative director, along with the DPE and other unions last year in restoring copyright protections for recording artists over the musical works that they create.

Prior to 1999, performing artists who by contract transferred their sound recording copyright to a record company, had the right to terminate that transfer and reclaim ownership of their property after 35 years. Congress had made a deliberate policy decision to provide termination rights to creators who typically suffered a disadvantage with purchasers of their works æ the record companies æ in part because it was impossible to determine a work's value prior to its release. Musical artists æ especially those new talents negotiating their first recording contracts æ were exactly the kinds of authors that the law was designed to protect because they have so little bargaining leverage with the major recording companies and are so easily taken advantage of.

Longstanding termination rights disappeared literally in the dead of night in late 1999—courtesy of an industry sponsored, stealth amendment that defined sound recordings as "works made for hire." This major change to U.S. copyright law erasing a key worker protection was added during a closed-door meeting of congressional staff members and later approved by lawmakers without any notice or hearings.

Immediately after the New Year, the AFM, DPE and other unions went to work on a campaign to repeal the 1999 amendment. Background materials were prepared and key staff members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees and Democratic leadership were briefed on the issue. AFM officers Steve Young and Tom Lee participated in many of these meetings. A hearing was finally held to expose the injustice of what Congress had done. Bi-partisan legislation was introduced to reverse what had occurred and less than eight months after Congress had enacted it. Congress repealed the change and restored copyright protections to these artists. It is no small feat to get the U.S. Congress to admit they made a mistake, but that's exactly what they did and it is a testament to the kind of effective work that the AFM is doing on Capitol Hill thanks to union leadership.

In conclusion, unions make a difference. Your presence here shows how AFM brings people together to learn about the music industry and, hopefully, make a difference in your life. If the union difference matters to Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts; if the union difference matters to Bare Naked Ladies and Santana, I hope that one day you will have the opportunity to join a union, and then you can make a difference as well.