RMALA responds to Parente

To AFM Delegates from RMALA President Pete Anthony

June 9, 2010

Dear Delegate,

I am not writing you to endorse candidates or take sides in an election.  My words were misquoted to you, and I am writing you to set the record straight.

I am writing in response to Joe Parente’s letter to the delegates of June 3, 2010, which contains reports about meetings I attended (see attached).  This letter makes a variety of wild claims, but it is most unfortunate that this letter makes a political football out of a 2008 meeting in Los Angeles, in which recording musicians were given to believe that they could speak freely and openly with the IEB. Our purpose was to reach peace and resolution. Parente’s letter is just plain wrong.

Yes, there was a meeting in October of 2008 in Los Angeles between recording musician representatives and the IEB. The IEB demanded that the meeting be largely supplanted by side-bar meetings with 3 members representing each side. The representatives he mentions from L.A., Nashville, and New York were indeed present, but kept waiting in another room for the vast majority of meeting time. To describe this event as a series of meetings, or to paint some extraordinary effort on his part to solve problems between the AFM leadership and its members is complete fantasy.

I was there. I was one of the recording musicians speaking about what could bring our union onto a path of effective and successful peace. We asked for that meeting (and subsequent meetings that were refused) in order to try to heal wounds, solve problems and help the AFM be successful. Recording musicians went to this meeting to further the common cause that we share with all of you, for a strong, effective and unified AFM.

What my colleagues and I expressed to the IEB, was the need for real input by musicians into the services that the union provides us.  This is not a revolutionary concept: Union members should have actual input into their negotiations, their services and their representation. Members should be able to help their union be successful.

I don’t know where “dollar in, dollar out” came from, or the idea that there could be a system that the AFM didn’t have control over. I don’t know where the idea that the RMA wants to dictate to the AFM comes from.  I don’t know where this letter gets its misguided view of lawsuits that some members have filed challenging IEB decisions. I don’t know why this letter so totally twists the words of recording musicians who have worked so hard to get our voices heard by the International Executive Board.

Here’s what I do know. Unhappiness with the status quo has driven recording musicians to distraction. We live day in and day out with opposition from our own AFM, with services that either they don’t deliver, or they deliver to employers, not players.  We live with a desire for strong, smart representation that will support us, and listen to our needs.

Instead, we get game-playing, endless politics of division, back-room dealing, and bad faith.  We get broken promises. We get a broken union.

I have spent countless unpaid hours sacrificing my professional and family time in order to help musicians work union, and to help our union work.  Here is a message to all of the candidates at this 2010 AFM Convention: please don’t play me or my hard work for any political campaign.

Sincerely and fraternally,


Pete Anthony
President, RMALA

Comments

[Antony Cooke]

Take a look at Ray Hair's words (at AFM Matters.com) in his IEB campaign speech three years ago for the 2007 Convention. He has been sounding this same cry for a long time now, and understands exactly where the AFM has gone wrong, and where it's headed barring some new direction and leadership. While no-one expects Ray to be lockstep with RMA sentiments or anyone else's, it's clear he 'gets it'. And everyone in the AFM ALL knows what a fine person he is, who will do his level best to bring sanity, functionality and unity back to our beloved union.