Two endorsements

I’ve posted two recent endorsements of Hal Espinosa’s candidacy on the candidate stuff website. They’re both interesting, but in different ways.

One is from the committees and many of the musicians of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. I don’t recall any orchestra ever endorsing any candidate during my time around the AFM, which makes this one interesting all by itself. But it’s pretty white-bread stuff; basically they say they endorse Hal because they like him as a local officer. No doubt the fact that some of the LA Phil musicians do film work on the side and have a community of interest with RMALA factored into this. But the endorsement alludes only in the most indirect way to the central plank of Hal’s campaign – his claim that Tom is dividing the AFM and that he can bring it together.

The other endorsement, in contrast, goes straight for that jugular. No surprise there; it’s from former Local 802 President and IEB member Bill Moriarity, arguably the most widely respected local officer in the AFM’s recent history (a sentiment I share completely, by the way). Bill presents the most cogent, principled and on-point criticism of Tom Lee’s interaction with the RMA that anyone (including the RMA) has made to date. The key lines are:

“For four years now this divisive policy has been pursued, first by just the President, but more recently joined by the current Secretary-Treasurer in an ever-increasing effort to drive from our union a crucial segment of its membership.

“At this time, more than ever in the past, we can’t afford this. It must end. The fighting must stop.”

I suspect that a large majority of delegates to the upcoming Convention, whether supporters of Tom’s or of Hal’s, share Bill’s desire for the war to end. The delegates might differ on who’s responsible for the war, but very few people really think it’s a good thing.

It’s fair to note that Bill and Tom have a long and strained history, going back to their time together on the IEB in the 1990s, and I doubt that either has ever really trusted or liked the other. Notwithstanding that history (and the fact that lots of the delegates know about it), I think Bill’s endorsement of Hal could be quite damaging to Tom – assuming that there are a significant number of delegates that haven’t already committed themselves to one side or the other. It certainly has the potential to be influential within the Local 802 delegation. Some in the Members’ Party seem to feel that the new administration will vote for Tom because he and David Lennon were enemies. But Bill was very critical of David Lennon as well. And a delegation with the number of votes that 802 has will always be a critical factor in determining who becomes AFM president.

Comments

[802 Member]

About a month ago, I asked principle 802 officers who we were going to support. It seemed that it was all over the board at that time. Some had loyalty to Tom and some were fed up with Tom.

Bill is well respected and his support is going to make it hard for those supporters of Tom to vote for him, although there are a couple of delegates who owe Tom quite a bit.