The Committee For A More Responsible Local 47

3/16/18
I. COWARD DU JOUR
II. MEMBER COMMENTARY
III. BLUEBOY DASH CAM TRANSCRIPT
IV. DOUBLE CHARGING NOT RESOLVED
V. MPS MEETING ON THE 21st!

VI. COMMENTS (LOTS)

VII. EVENTS

…Absolutely guaranteed anonymity – Former Musician’s Union officer

’

…The one voice of reason in a sea of insanity – Nashville ‘first call’
scoring musician

…Allows us to speak our minds without fear of reprisal – L.A. Symphonic musician

…Reporting issues the Musicians Union doesn’t dare to mention – National touring musician

=========================

 

I. COWARD DU JOUR

It’s has just been confirmed to us that after
being asked why he cannot work towards
getting rid of the back end
President John Acosta was quoted as saying:
“I can’t, the RMA would have my head.”

Coward indeed.

=========================

II. MEMBER COMMENTARY

 

Someone recommended I write to the blog when I
saw your latest post. Rick B told me to do non-union
gigs over the phone. He said: “Let me put on my
trumpet hat for you – I get that you need to do non-
union gigs in order to make a living so just do it but
don’t publicize it.” He told me several times it
was OK to do non-union gig but I shouldn’t post
about it on Facebook or social media.

Several people can confirm that he said this to
other people as well.

Total Hypocrites

I was also harassed by Gordon which is why
I went to Rick.

They would not direct me to the proper channels
in order to go fi-core. Gordon harassed me over
the phone and kept asking, “Why do you want
to go fi-core? You’re the reason why the union
in hurting.”

Anyways, I’m really glad what the blog is doing
– exposing those criminals. Something has to change.
I’m tired of selected harassment and I know who that
person was who was falsely accused and I hope
they’ll be getting all of that $$$ back that they spent.

name withheld.

[EC: We have reports, and some reports posted
publicly on facebook, of Pres. Acosta telling
musicians the same – the player he told that to
posted it himself.

So where do they get off charging anyone?}

 

=================================

III. BLUEBOY

DASH CAM TRANSCRIPT
(HARASSMENT BY GRAYSON)
Transcript from Dash Camera
Recording Time: 10/27/16
Approximately 2:30 PM
Location: Local Musicians 47 Parking Lot

Grayson: Your @@@@?

@@@@: Yes.

\Grayson: I’m Gordon Grayson. I’m the guy that file
charges against you. I just spoke to your attorney.

#####: I don’t think we can discuss that until
further proceedings, at this moment. We have
not had this properly negotiated so we are not
willing to make a statement.

Grayson: Who are you by the way?

#####: I don’t have to identify myself.

Grayson: No, you don’t. I’m just curious.

#####: I am looking out for the safety of
@@@@

Grayson: Well, I have some information
that you could find important.
#####1: We can’t speak on it but, we are
welcome to listen if you want to tell us
your standpoint.

Grayson: I just spoke with your lawyer, ********,
and I assured her that there has been a
misidentification. It’s unfortunate that
you even had to incur the cost of an
attorney. You know that this process
is not a legal process, it’s an internal
union process by which we are able
to be sure in certain instances or
circumstances, uh, where musicians
may or may not have been in violation
of our bylaws.

So, it’s really an investigative process
not necessarily disciplinary. So the idea
was to get a positive identification of
musicians who are in violation of the rules,
uh, if our identification was incorrect, we
want to know that too. So obviously the
interest is not to misidentify people or
accuse people of things that are not
necessarily true. So, I have received
information from some people who
were there (at the bridge) who confirmed
that you were not and that is satisfactory
to me so, our intent is to put that in writing
to let you know and also, to let the
Federation know that this is a misidentification,
uh, and that those charges will be withdrawn,
um, and for all of that I apologize.

As far as public disclosure the…..a….list of
musicians that was sent to each musician
contained every other musician’s name but,
that is the extent of the distribution. I sent
that to the Federation I am sure most
musicians on that list have a bedded
interest so other people don’t know that
don’t know that they were on it. So I
doubt very seriously that the list is
being distributed but I can’t say for
certain. Uh, it was not my intent to
distribute that list to every musician.

I sent that to the Federation, the Federation
sent that to every musician so they
could have redacted it. And in the
future, I would try to convince them
to do that. If there ever arose a situation
like this again, it’s pretty rare and it’s
pretty new to me to deal with such a
large scale so there are things I could
have done better and I will next time.

So I will put something in writing to you
and your lawyer, I will put something in
writing to the Federation and then as far
as do not hire list, there is no such list
as of now because these charges are
still outstanding. There’s no list out there
that says don’t hire

@@@@@, but there are some people
that might not want to hear from Mark
Robertson but, (awkward laugh) our
union is not telling anyone not to hire
anybody. You know I would not stand
in the way of any of those musicians
from getting union employment because
that’s what we come here every day for,
to try to help people look out for themselves
and for their interests. I want to extend an
apology; you know it was certainly not
intended. We come here to help musicians.
And that’s the intent here is to keep our
contracts going and protect the musicians
who do say no to non-union work. So it’s
unfortunate that you got caught up in that
and I appreciate how upset you are and
I understand that we didn’t do it on
purpose we will do everything we can to
not let that happen again.

[EC: So where’s his reimbursement
of legal fees? ($15,000) An apology in
no way is enough.,… no where near.]

================================

IV. DOUBLE CHARGING NOT RESOLVED

Charles Fernandez wrote to the Local 47 secretary
asking for chapter and verse of the rule that allows
the union not to apply reg. dues to fi-core dues when
a musician converts.

He, to his credit, responded two days later, with two
screenshots

1) FROM THE BULLETIN BOARD
Annual Membership Dues – Regular Member
Full Year: $210 – Half Year: $100

Life member – Active Life Member: $110
Inactive Life Member: $90

Make checks or money orders payable to:
AFM Local 47, 3220 Winona Ave., Burbank, CA 91504

You can also make payments with
Visa, Mastercard or Discover

for future information, please contact the
Dues/Membership Department: (323) 993-3116,
[email protected].

[EC: Nice info, but doesn’t address the question
at all.]

———–

2) AFM LOCAL 47 REFUND/RETURN POLICY
Unless otherwise specified, Membership and
Work dues payments made to AFM Local 47
are not refundable.

Merchandise or other items purchased directly
from AFM Local 47 may be returned within
fourteen days of purchase upon return of the item(s)
in the condition in which you received said items.

To request a refund and return content, please
contact AFM Local 47, Attn. Vice President’s
Office, 323.993.3172
[email protected], 3220 Wiwona Ave.
Burbank, CA 91504, to receive instructions on
returning your product(s)

 

COLLEAGUES,

So, we’ve established that dues are non-refundable,
but it does not say membership dues cannot be
transferred for use as fi-core dues.
(In fact we now have proof that they do, more
info next week)

While the secretary said an additional packet of
information was sent, Mr. Fernandez has not as
of yet received it and has requested another.

THE BYLAWS

Checking the AFM BYLAWS
ARTICLE 5–LOCALS’ RIGHTS & DUTIES
Local Dues and Fees Authorities – Page 28

It says nothing.

The words Fi-Core, Financial Core
and Beck Status do not appear in the
AFM Bylaws we have.

Therefore, the Local cannot pretend
to have a policy preventing the transfer
of membership dues paid to be applied
to FI-Core dues if a member chooses
to go fi-core.

To be fair, it can also be said that there
is no policy ALLOWING the transfer of
funds for fi-core membership.

This would seem to leave it up to the ethics
and consideration of the administration.

If you’re an ethical Local, you’ll allow the
transfer of membership dues to fi-core
dues, save musicians money and
refund anyone double charged.

Will they do the right thing and refund
Mr. Fernandez’ double charging?

If they are ethical they will,
if they aren’t they won’t. If they
don’t, to our thinking this means
they are guilty of defrauding
each member they do this to.

Let’s just say we won’t hold our
collective breaths.

Any thoughts? We want to know.

THE COMMITTEE

 

================================

V. MPS NATIONAL MEETING NEXT WEEK!
Save the date:
Nationwide Meeting for all AFM Musicians
March 21, 2018 at 5pm
St. Malachy’s Church
239 W 49th St, New York, NY

LIVE STREAMING ON FACEBOOK
Streaming will start 5 pm EST. Go to our
Facebook page here. Click follow and opt-
in to receive notifications when we go live.
Due to time constraints, we will not be able
to answer questions posted to Facebook
during the meeting. Please send all
questions to [email protected].
We will get back to you ASAP.

FOLLOW US ON TWITTER
Twitter has become a popular tool with
politicians. In future calls to action, we
can use it to message them directly. Go
to our Twitter page here and click FOLLOW.

BREAKING AFM PENSION NEWS!

•    Musicians for Pension Security recently
obtained the AFM-EPF trustees’ own
documents made public by law. (read
them here) These documents reveal
that the pension trustees have been
planning cuts to our pension benefits
going all the way back to August of 2015.
According to those documents the
trustees are targeting a 25-30% cut
to existing benefits.

•    On January 4, 2018, in a letter to
Congressional leaders, our trustees
declared that our pension plan “is on
the brink of entering critical and declining
status in the near future.” (Read the
January 4 letter here.) MPS believes
the trustees could set a MPRA
application into motion as early as
June 2018, which starts the process
that allows the trustees to cut our
benefits.

•    MPS hired Tom Lowman, a
nationally recognized pension actuary,
to review the situation. At the March 21
meeting, Tom will show how our trustees
are proceeding upon questionable
assumptions that we would like to
change and will explain why. Tom
Lowman thinks that delaying cuts
and working on improving the funding
is the way to go. Cutting benefits
now may result in larger cuts than needed.

•    You will also hear from Jonathan
Kantor, our legal counsel, who will
explain the process that our trustees
are following to obtain the cuts,
together with legal options that they
— and we — have.

It is critical that all AFM members
make every effort to attend this
meeting. If you haven’t already,
please click here to RSVP to the
March 21st meeting or join us via
Facebook LIVE on the
MPS Facebook page. Your attendance
at the MPS National meeting will
help to give you a better understanding
of what is happening to our pension
and the solutions we think will
make a difference.
Who is MPS? Click HERE.

What is MPRA? Click HERE.

In solidarity,
Musicians for Pension Security

Stay informed with MPS. Join our mailing list here.

 

=====================================

VI. COMMENTS

Well…well…so they could not even credit Fernandez with
the dues he already paid?  They did have a published
policy on how monies received would be applied…e.g.
Annual dues, work dues (past) or (present)…etc.  I
don’t recall seeing anything about fi-core funds…
and btw I would say paying twice for the same time
period is providing the union with unjust enrichment…
they get almost twice as much while you get less than
half as much…hmmm.

They should be able to confirm when such a policy
was initiated and where was it first posted?

Does the local actually have a policy regarding dual
payments that explains how and why they should
be able to keep two payments for the same period?

I would argue that if they want to keep the regular
annual dues then you should be able to use their
facilities for the year.

———————————–

At least keeping both payments for the whole
year should not be a policy…perhaps some kind
of pro-rate?  Do you think that they do this to
incentivize people from going if-core during any
given year…having to pay more to a union that
does everything it can to keep union work
confined to a few?

———————————–

Kinda reminds me of the current white house s••• show –
Marc Sazer suing because he’s not getting hired – good god –
what entitlement -the RMALA is going to drive every last
session out of town except for the few that they’ll do at
the one major studio left – what reasons do we have to
be union anymore – my work dues were ZERO last month –
I’m not going to help them in upcoming negotiations as
they were requesting input from rank and file recording peeps –

———————————-

WOW….

Great public record…maybe should ask John Acosta what he
thinks of the Sazer suit? LOL!

 

———————————-

 

freelance players are not subject to tenure unless there is a
provision for it in the collective bargaining agreement.
To my knowledge there are no more “studio orchestras”
as was in the “golden age” of studio cinema…the players
showed up and worked an essentially 9-5 job.

The RMA has (by design and from the beginning tried
and very much) succeeded in creating a de facto tenure
for themselves where there was none.
You are either IN or OUT of their “club”.

———————————-

 

IF the DOL had the will, they could see what the RMA
has done to disenfranchise the majority of the membership.
They kicked out Bernie Fleischer because he wouldn’t
go along.   Only need to show that SDC was installed
in the Local by the RMA…the secretary to the deceased
music contractor at Universal….a few people made
boatloads of $$$.

———————————-

Another colleague says….

Not happy to consider a dead union….because it is
the people in charge of THIS local that are the
problem…unionism via the union movement
has helped a great many people in many industries.

[The committee has been and always will
be pro-union. But we’re pro “ethical” union,
not a corrupt one.]

———————————-

JA has his eyes on achieving big labor union leader
status (not necessarily with AFM)…the EB spends
the local dues flying him all over to “promote”
the Local…in reality he is using those resources
to promote himself…there is no political
photo-op he won’t chase.  Really…what kind
of return did LA get by handing out CD’s to
the Chinese?  What did be actually do in
Havana besides giving out priestly handshakes?

Does anyone know if JA has ever worked
under a collective bargaining agreement
as a playing musician?

———————————

….. Welcome to Trump’s World!!

———————————

Interesting question….just what part of
the bylaws applies to the fi-core “members”?

 

================================

VII. EVENTS

 

DEAN AND RICHARD 
are now at

Culver City Elks the first 
Friday of 
every month.

7:30pm-10:30pm,

11160 Washington Pl.

Culver City, 90232

310-839-8891

——————————————————

HELIX COLLECTIVE COMPOSING OPPORTUNITY –

DEADLINE, MARCH 25TH!

Apply to have your original score performed live-to-
picture by Helix Collective at the 2018 Los Angeles
Live Score Film Festival! Apply with a link to your
video reel and a PDF score.
Application deadline: March 25, 2018
APPLY HERE
More info: www.lalsff.org
LASFF Trailer Video

The Los Angeles Live Score Film Festival features
short films with original scores performed live-to-
picture. The 2018 festival on Saturday, July 21st
at the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre is presented by
Helix Collective in collaboration with the
Academy of Scoring Arts. Films for the 2018 festival
are curated by the faculty at the New York Film
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Selected film composers are paired with a winning
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Helix Collective www.helixcollective.net

——————–

3/19/18
The Adam Cohen Band at TRIP Santa Monica 2018-03-19

The Adam Cohen Band at
TRIP in Santa Monica
March 19, 2018 • 9-10PM
2101 Lincoln Blvd
Santa Monica, CA 90405
TRIPSANTAMONICA.COM
• ADAM COHEN: BASS
• MARK HOLLINGSWORTH: SAXOPHONE
• BILL FULTON: KEYBOARDS
• DAVE ANDERSON: DRUMS
• JOHANN FRANK: GUITAR

---

Wed MARCH 21, 2018 at 12:10-12:40 pm at

the Free Admission
GLENDALE NOON CONCERTS

NANCY FIERRO Piano Recital: “Music of the Belle Epoque;”
Works by Lili Boulanger, Cecile Chaminade , and Claude Debussy.
Thank you!

Jacqueline Suzuki
Curator, Glendale Noon Concerts
818 249-5108

—————————————-
4/11/18
Coming to Vibrato April 11th @ 7:30pm

The Fabulous Grammy Nominated
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reminiscent of the refreshing sounds of

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Los Angeles, CA.90077

Reservations call 310-474-9400

PLAYING THE MUSIC OF 
Rogers & Hart,

George Shearing, Benny Goodman,

Hank Mancini, Debussy, Joseph Kosma,

Billy Strayhorn, Jimmy Forrest,

Stanley Turrentine
Bob Nolan and others.

—————————————-

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——————————————–

UNTIL NEXT TIME,

THE COMMITTEE FOR A MORE RESPONSIBLE LOCAL 47

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