I’m a little late to this party, but there is a legal action brought against the AFM and Local 47 in Federal court by several Local 47 members regarding the collection of dues on work done under AFM videogame agreements:
Recording musicians David Parameter, Anatoly Rosinsky and Andrew Shulman allege that work dues collected from musicians by Local 47 and sent to the AFM should be returned to Local 47 for work done under one-off buyout recording agreements made available to video game companies by the AFM, citing an AFM by-law that states that work dues are due only for “negotiated agreements.” The musicians claim that the video game agreements were not negotiated and ratified by the membership, and therefore should not be subject to work dues.
The AFM has responded in court documents that the video game agreements, while not ratified by the membership of the AFM, are not “non-negotiated” within the meaning of its bylaws and denies any obligation to account for or refund to Local 47 dues paid by Local 47 to the AFM for work done under the agreements.
Based on the plain language of the AFM bylaws, I’d say that the plaintiffs have a point. But of course lawsuits seldom are resolved on the basis of plain language. The AFM has collected dues on work done under promulgated agreements before; the instance most familiar to me is that of work done under the old symphonic Radio-to-Noncommercial promulgated agreement.
But there is a key difference between that situation and this one, although it’s not a legal distinction. The RNC agreement was done with the approval – if not the actual instigation – of ICSOM. The videogame agreements were promulgated against the fervent opposition of the RMA (and I suspect Local 47 as well). The fact that some members are willing to do whatever they can to oppose such action can’t be a surprise to anyone who understands the value of union democracy.
Local 47 actually has two dogs in this fight, contrary to first appearances. The first is as defendant. The second is as potential beneficiary of a victory by the plaintiffs.
Remember that the suit claims that the AFM has no right to collect work dues on work not done under “AFM-negotiated” contracts. But in fact the AFM only sets the minimum work dues for such work, of which a percentage (collected by locals) goes to the AFM. There is no such restriction on what a Local can collect.
If the AFM loses, it will have the obligation to refund a non-trivial sum of money to Local 47. But if the Local has legally established work dues on videogame work by a vote of the membership (and I don’t know that it has), then it will have no obligation that I can see to refund such dues to members. That could amount to a substantial windfall for Local 47.
I suspect that hasn't gone unnoticed by the various parties.
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