Recommendations and resolutions generally fall into three categories: no-brainers, DOA, and those that might actually make a difference (and stand some chance of passage as well).
The IEB, when putting forward Recommendations, usually avoids the DOA variety. This year they managed to spare us any of the last variety as well.
Recommendations 1 through 7 are policy statements on issues that the AFM is virtually powerless to impact for good or otherwise. Sadly, some trees had to die in order for the delegates to get them in the mail, but they won’t take a lot of time for the Convention to consider or otherwise do any damage.
Recommendation 8 is a seemingly minor technical change in how per capita dues are calculated. Perhaps its centrality to the future of the AFM will be made clear at the Convention.
Recommendation 9 will require locals to demonstrate their actual membership numbers when paying per capita dues to the AFM, assuming that it’ll be enforced. But this is information the AFM mostly has in its database already, so it’s hard to see much changing as a result of this.
Recommendation 10 would change the amount of annual per capita dues that is allocated to the International Musician from $1 to $2. For those of you beginning to think that the IEB might actually be proposing an increase in per capita, think again. They’re not. But then they all appear to be running for office, so bold proposals are not the order of the day.
Recommendation 11 appears to be a response to the Philly media situation. It would require that the entire IEB, rather than the President, approve media provisions in symphonic contracts in advance of ratification. It’s unworkable and unenforceable, which doesn’t mean it won’t pass. After all, even having the President approve such provisions was unworkable and unenforceable, and that passed. So let’s make things even worse…
Recommendation 12 would require that “all modifications to Local constitutions, bylaws, and price lists…be enacted only by the members in good standing voting by secret ballot.” I would guess that most local bylaws already require this. The problem for many locals is that it’s very hard to get a quorum at a membership meeting. In Local 8, that situation leaves the local Executive Board empowered to deal with the matter. (This is not the case with anything relating to changes in dues, as Federal law requires that to be done by the members voting by secret ballot.) I wonder what the genesis of this one is.
Resolution 13 appears to be a technical clarification of the rules regarding how locals can and can’t remove from good standing those members who don’t pay their dues in a timely fashion. Some local must have done something really interesting in this area…
Recommendation 14 may be a response to the events in the Montreal local over the past few years. It appears to be a simple explication of the methodology for dealing with appeals from rulings of the Canadian office. One wonders if this is an implicit rebuke by the rest of the IEB to Bobby Herriot for his handling of the Montreal mess.
Recommendation 15: a reason all by itself to come to Vegas and vote. It requires locals to make sure that anything they send out has “AFM,” “ The American Federation of Musicians of the United States of Canada,” or the AFM seal on it.
Recommendation 16 deletes that portion of the AFM bylaws which states:
If an application for [membership] reinstatement is made to the IEB directly, then the applicant, in order to become reinstated, must meet any conditions that the IEB may impose.
Hey guys – where’s the beef?
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