Musicians Play a New (Media) Tune

In the “While you were out” department, the American Federation of Musicians and the studios signed a new deal . . . four months ago. But don’t feel like we’re late to the party — the deal doesn’t seem to have been reported in the Hollywood press. Talk about sotto voce. The negotiations themselves concluded in early November of last year, as I reported at the time, but it apparently took a while to reduce the deal to writing.

There are several items of note (so to speak) in the signed agreement, which runs through February 23, 2013:

* Wage increases are small by most Hollywood union standards: 1.5% or 2% per year. However, the increases in the AFM’s previous signed agreement also weren’t large by those standards, where 3.0%-3.5% have been the recent norm. Thus, it’s unclear if these numbers signify anything about the size of increases that the above the line unions will achieve in the upcoming (October 1 and beyond) cycle of bargaining.

* The Health Plan is being juggled around a bit. One thing that stands out apparently mirrors a provision in the IATSE health plan deal: up to 1% of the wage increases can be converted instead to an increased contribution to the health plan, if necessary for the plan’s financial reserves. That’s intriguing, because what usually happens in the above the line guilds and unions is that at most 0.5% of a wage increase goes instead to an increased P&H contribution. Depending on the needs of the above the line health plans (each union or guild has its own), we might see a 1% conversion in the upcoming negotiations.

* The New Media template adopted by the above the line unions and guilds and by IATSE has now been adopted by the Musicians as well. The AFM deal resembles the IA’s, in that there are somewhat fewer residuals than the above the line unions and guilds achieved. For instance, when a television show is streamed on ad-supported new media (such as the free version of Hulu), the above the line unions and guilds receive residuals but IATSE and AFM don’t.

No More Sounds of Silence on the Music Composition Front?

Everyone knows that composers and lyricists make scales ... now they want to make scale as well. Union scale, that is (or, even better, above scale). One of the few non-unionized sectors of Hollywood, composers and lyricists - the people who write music (as opposed to musicians, the people who perform it) - are now in talks with the Teamsters for representation.

It's not as strange as it seems: the macho union of dock workers and Hollywood truck drivers (Teamsters Local 399 on the West coast and Local 817 in New York) also represents casting directors, location managers, and various other tenderfoots. An earlier bid to join the Writers Guild (WGA) apparently gained little traction.

All this according to recent pieces in Variety (here, here, and here) and a long piece today in the LA Times. An early-stage meeting Monday, which had been announced by the Society of Composers & Lyricists (a trade group, not a union) attracted over 300 people, about a third of the 900 who would be covered by a union agreement. About 200 of them signed union authorization cards, but the Teamsters are hoping for two-thirds (i.e., 600 or so) in order to move forward.

In other audible union news, AFTRA recently approved its interactive (i.e., video game) voiceover contract, while SAG voted down its similar pact, representing a rare defeat for SAG's new administration. Despite concerns with some aspects of the contract, that's unfortunate for SAG, because I'm told this sector is only about 25% unionized (AFTRA numbers + SAG's). That means that video game companies can easily move over to AFTRA - or go nonunion. The hard reality is that neither SAG nor AFTRA control the labor supply in this area, leaving them little leverage in negotiations. Sort of like bringing a PS2 to a PS3 meetup.

In still other news on the union front - sorry, I've been busy prepping for my UCLA gig, not to mention working for a living - the California Court of Appeals dismissed as moot an appeal by former SAG president Alan Rosenberg and his fellow Membership First plaintiffs newly-reelected 1st VP Anne-Marie-Johnson and board members Diane Ladd and Kent McCord of their suit against their own union. This cacophony lives on in the lower court, however, still costing the union money, but there's some hope that that court will adopt the appeals court's underlying reasoning and dismiss the entire proceeding on the same basis. Let's hope.

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