On Jan 29, 2005, at 6:48 PM, Aaron Sherber wrote:
Adequate according to whom? The musicians who played presumably felt adequately compensated, or they wouldn't have done the job.
According to the Italian musicians guild, and the French musicians guild, and the AFM.
Okay, but I'm not sure I accept the right of those groups to define "adequate". You can say they weren't paid to scale, which is something quite different.
You don't accept the right of a group who stands to get screwed royally (musicians) by a large company to collectively negotiate fair wages and working conditions??!!
Most independent contractors already have problems negotiating fair (read: adequate) wages, and musicians are even more likely to get the short end of the stick. I am the first one to admit that musicians are only TOO willing to accept inadequate wages and conditions, but their willingness to be screwed does not make it right when some employer is making big bucks off of them.
OK, let's take a step back and look at what's being said here. Union scale is a MINIMUM, even though most contractors take it as a maximum. The reason they can is that there are more musicians than there are jobs, same as any other line of work. So good, competent musicians are almost forced to work for jouneymen's wages. (And incompetent ones get protected by union rules, although contractors may never hire them a second time because their own reputations are on the line.)
But true master musicians have always had to option of charging more than minimum scale, and have done so, and have been able to do so because they are in demand because they are the best, and contractors and producers who want the best will budget for their fees.
And this is at the heart of one of the biggest problems with the AFM, and many other unions as well. The leader of the band, who is a union member and ostensibly the representative of his sidemen, is in a conflict of interest when he talks to the client. He needs the keep the band's interest at heart, but the client's needs (and his own need as a leader to seal the deal) put him on the opposite side of the negotiating table.
No, it isn't a perfect system. Very few are, in the real world. When I was a full-time touring musician in the '60s, my group had to be union members, but we never worked for as little as scale and, in turn, the union never did anything good for us. We were in demand and we had a good agent.
John
-- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
