You are viewing the archive: “American Federation Of Musicians”

Union Musicians Hit Marvel & Disney With Outsourcing Protests Again

By DOMINIC PATTEN | Friday May 24, 2013 @ 10:21am PDTTags: American Federation Of Musicians, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Disney, Marvel Studios

The American Federation of Musicians are not letting up on Marvel and Disney for scoring their films overseas while getting tax breaks at home. This time the union was in Cleveland close to where filming for Captain America: The Winter Soldier was occurring. About 35 AFM members took to the city’s downtown streets on Thursday to protest the score for the star spangled sequel being outsourced to the UK while Marvel/Disney receive a nearly $10 million tax credit for filming in Ohio. Chanting “bring the music home,” union members handed out flyers slamming the profitable studio for heading “straight to Europe and hired foreign musicians under the table and on the cheap, robbing U.S. musicians of their jobs.”

“People we spoke to on the street in Cleveland were shocked by what the studio was doing, taking their tax dollars that are intended to keep jobs in the US and doing the exact opposite,” Linda Rapka of LA-based Local 47 told me. Rapka was in Cleveland with three other members from LA and two others from NYC Local 802. The AFM was joined in Cleveland also by members of the SEIU, the AFI-CIO and food services union UNITE HERE. The AFM, which has about 90,000 members in the US and Canada, are planning future protests against Marvel/Disney. This latest action this week comes just over month after the AFM staged protests in LA near the set of The Winter Soldier over the same issue. On the same day, the union were handing out their flyers outside Marvel’s Manhattan offices just before the premiere of Iron Man 3. In June 2012, AFM had protested outside Marvel’s Manhattan Beach offices over the outsourcing of music in regards to The Avengers. Members of the union also protested outside the production of IM3 in Wilmington, North Carolina last August. The state has a very generous tax credit program that has successfully lured a number of Hollywood movies and TV productions.

Comments (14)

Union Musicians Picket Marvel & Disney Over ‘Iron Man 3′

By DOMINIC PATTEN | Tuesday April 23, 2013 @ 10:46am PDTTags: American Federation Of Musicians, Marvel Studios

In anticipation of the LA premiere of Iron Man 3 tomorrow, the American Federation of Musicians is out today protesting Marvel Studios. AFM members were outside the midtown Manhattan offices of Marvel on Tuesday handing out … Read More »

Comments 26

Musicians Reach Deal With ABC, CBS, NBC

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Sunday November 25, 2012 @ 3:15pm PSTTags: ABC, American Federation Of Musicians, Big Deals TV, CBS, NBC

The American Federation of Musicians has reached a new three-year agreement with ABC, CBS and NBC that covers live and recorded TV shows, Variety reports. The TV/videotape pact covers musicians on shows such as Dancing With The Stars as well … Read More »

Comments (1)

Musicians Slam TV Networks: AFM Protests Leno, Letterman, Kimmel And Other Shows

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Wednesday October 3, 2012 @ 6:41am PDTTags: American Federation Of Musicians

The union’s complaint is that its performers in 7 years haven’t been given a pay raise or healthcare increases on these live-audience network shows. So the AFM is protesting outside The Tonight Show, Dancing With The Stars, Today, Good Morning … Read More »

Comments (9)

‘Hunger Games’ Orchestrator To Picket Lionsgate On Behalf Of His Musicians Guild

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Wednesday January 4, 2012 @ 9:08pm PSTTags: American Federation Of Musicians, Lionsgate, The Hunger Games

EXCLUSIVE: Talk about embarrassing a studio and a guild simultaneously. Tomorrow the American Federation of Musicians will picket Lionsgate because the studio is not using AFM musicians on The Hunger Games. Since that movie is now in post-production and AFM President Ray Hair has made Lionsgate the target of picketing, Thursday’s protest is happening at the Lionsgate TV show Mad Men‘s downtown LA location shoot. Further complicating the situation is that one of tomorrow’s picketers is expected to be Hair’s chief lieutenant, Recording Musicians Association Of Los Angeles President Pete Anthony who sources tell me “scabbed” as an orchestrator on The Hunger Games. (Anthony is a conductor for James Newton-Howard who is the composer for The Hunger Games.) Here’s what Hair says is AFM’s problem with Lionsgate:

“The American Federation of Musicians is moving to organize the independent film studio Lionsgate, and we are working right now toward securing AFM coverage for all musicians who might be employed on their upcoming movie, The Hunger Games,” Hair recently told AFM members. “The director, cinematographers, editors, actors, writers, and many others are all receiving union wages, benefits and protections for this U.S.-filmed movie, and so it should be for the musicians. Unfortunately, we currently have no motion picture contracts on file for the movie The Hunger Games, although we know that post-production music work has begun on this film domestically. Our goal is that Lionsgate recognize the importance of being a responsible employer, as well as the unparalleled value of working with the world’s finest musicians – you, our AFM members.”

The problem of having Anthony – the president of the RMA, a subsect of the national AFM — picket a movie he has scabbed on has brought considerable attention to the orchestrator because he’s up for reelection in two weeks. Activist AFM members are calling on Anthony to resign for working “non-union” even as he has been a vital member of the AFM. Further deepening the tension is that the AFM has a strict bylaw calling for a $50K fine for the composer and anyone else who works non-union. Now the question is whether AFM president Hair and local 47 President Vince Trombetta will make their members as responsible as they are holding Lionsgate? Here’s what the blog Responsible47 is saying about the AFM/RSM/Hunger Games/Lionsgate matter:

WHO ORCHESTRATED THE FILM? – wait for it… None other than the grand Pooh-bah of the RMALA, Pete Anthony.

That’s right folks. Not just an RMA member, not just an RMA officer, but the PRESIDENT OF THE RECORDING MUSICIANS ASSOCIATION OF LOS ANGELES (RMALA) just orchestrated a film that went out of the country (as he had done many times before), and orchestration IS covered by Union Contracts. There’s also a $50,000 fine for doing that work, though some mouths have been wagging, saying out of the country is fine. (See Bylaw below.)

Read More »

Comments (19)

Is SiriusXM Trying To Stop Making Royalty Payments To Musicians?

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Thursday October 27, 2011 @ 12:24pm PDTTags: AFTRA, American Federation Of Musicians, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, Sirius XM, Sirius XM Satellite Radio

That’s the explosive claim that the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the American Federation of Musicians are making today based on the satellite radio company’s efforts to cut deals with independent record labels giving them 100% of the royalty … Read More »

Comments (6)