An announcement that contains all of the good news and none of the bad:
From the Office of the AFM President
Dear Local Officer,
I am pleased to announce that at 3 am on Friday morning, November 6, after five rounds of negotiations over the course of nearly nine months, the Federation and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) reached a tentative agreement on new Theatrical and Television Motion Picture Agreements that will run through February 2013. The Agreements grant the Federation jurisdiction over productions made for New Media, significantly increase contribution rates into the Film Musicians Secondary Market Fund for traditional product exhibited in New Media, provide a new income stream when music is used in New Media other than in New Media productions, protect musicians’ health benefits at a time of increasing pressure on those benefits, and increase wages over the term of the Agreements. At the same time, we were able to resist successfully significant AMPTP efforts to undercut many longstanding protections contained in the Agreements. The details of the new Agreements will be sent to members eligible to vote in a ratification package within the coming weeks.
For the record, I've heard nothing at all about the contents of this settlement. But I can't believe that the AFM didn't make some concessions to get whatever improvements might exist in this agreement. And, given how thoroughly the representatives the the rank-and-file elected were marginalized in the run-up to this negotiation, and how thoroughly they've been demonized by Tom and the rest of the IEB, I wonder just how much input the boots on the ground had in the final result.
But no doubt all will be revealed in due course, warts and all. For, if there's one thing that even newbie negotiations quickly learn, there are always warts in a collective bargaining agreement.
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