Two documents recently floated over my transom, providing both some insight into the current state of play in the RMA/IEB war and more evidence of just how ridiculous was The Action That Shall Not Be Made Public.
Local 257 President (and IEB member) Harold Bradley wrote in his column for the latest 257 newsletter about The Action and the pushback from 188 members of his local:
Thank
you for attending the Regular Membership Meeting, Sept. 8, 2008. It was
an important meeting relating to the survival of the AFM and this
Local. The meeting centered around a petition of 188 names brought to
our Local Executive Board by Nashville RMA President, Local 257 Board
member, David Pomeroy. For Local 257 members who could not attend, I
will reconstruct the pertinent points:
The
petition was given an unfavorable recommendation by the Executive
Board, but the sponsors refused to withdraw it. Therefore, the petition
went before the membership. At that time it became public knowledge in
the U.S. and Canada via our local newspaper.
At
the Sept. 8 meeting, Local 257's Parliamentarian Ron Keller ruled that
it was not a resolution, and therefore could not be voted upon. I
accepted his ruling, but opened the floor for discussion, although
Secretary-Treasurer Billy Linneman and I had responded to the petition
and David Pomeroy's E-Mail, in our own E-Mail dated Sept. 6, 2008, of
which copies are available to Local 257 members.
Sure looked like a resolution to me. What, I wonder, was so un-resolutiony about it?
Listed below are some of the reasons the IEB is considering terminating the RMA's conference status:
If the AFM had expelled Ayling for filing a charge with the NLRB, the AFM would be in violation of the law. Why is it then OK to expel the organization of which Ayling is the elected head for the same reason?
Was this an action taken by the RMA? If not, why is the RMA being punished for it?
So the RMA is going to be cast into the wilderness because it is “conjectured” that a few of its members might file another lawsuit? I guess we now know what the Bush Doctrine would look like when applied to internal dissent.
And, because it appeared in the IM, we know that the allegations are true? I would think that due process would require an additional step; it's called “proof.”
Well, those that filed the lawsuit apparently don't think the AFM has the authority to collect those work dues (and apparently the court thinks they have a case.) Is the RMA's crime that 1) it has members who think bad thoughts, or 2) that they have members who try to use the courts to enforce their rights under US law?
So now it's a crime for the head of a players conference to ask the AFM president for information? Even if “it is believed” that he might want the information to assist his members fight AFM actions that they believe undemocratic and illegal?
A member of the Cleveland Orchestra is asserting his Beck rights. Perhaps Local 4 should be expelled from the AFM.
“Also believed” simply doesn't cut it as a basis for actions such as The Action. But I do love the idea that the RMA has “encouraged these actions by not condemning those who are taking these actions.” Local 8 hasn't condemned them either. I guess we'll soon be hearing via the grapevine that Local 8 is going to be expelled from the AFM.
And then a letter from AFM President Tom Lee to RMA President Phil Ayling showed up in my inbox (not, I should add, sent to me by Ayling). Tom wrote, one day before the meeting between the RMA and the IEB was scheduled to begin:
2. eliminate and denounce those associated with the Professional Musicians Guild?
3. eliminate FAREPLAY?
4. eliminate charges filed with the NRLB?
5. eliminate accusatory articles in RMA newsletters?
5. eliminate inflammatory newspaper articles?
Quite frankly, it was the IEB's assumption that it was meeting with a group that included more participants from RMA LA that could deliver on the above kinds of issues. After, reviewing the list of participants that you provided, it is apparent that many are not from the LA area and that fact has raised the question on the groups' authority.
Please respond as soon as possible so the members of the IEB may evaluate your answer prior to catching their flights tomorrow.
The day before the meeting seems a little late to be resolving issues like this. Putting that aside, though, is Tom saying that, after the IEB passed The Action and stated that the RMA was behind all of this stuff, now some members of the IEB don't want to meet with the RMA because the RMA doesn't have the authority to make all this stuff go away? If the RMA can't make it go away, why did the IEB blame the RMA for it in the first place? And when did the RMA get the authority to "eliminate inflammatory newspaper articles?" Can I have some of that authority too?
I'll bet it was “the IEB's assumption that it was meeting with a group that included more participants from RMA LA that could deliver on the above kinds of issues.” Unfortunately, that group is not the one that that the IEB is threatening to de-conference.
This is just amateur hour stuff.
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