I now know how Charlie Brown would have felt had, just once, Lucy let
him actually kick the football. He would have felt a stunned disbelief
that what he had long wanted to happen - and what should have been
happening all along - finally did happen. I don’t know what he would
have felt next, as I’m still in the “stunned disbelief” phase.
For
the past 20 years I’ve been part of a movement within the AFM that
started decades before that, that never had a name, and that didn’t even
have a goal that all the participants would have agreed on. The phrase I
used to describe that goal was “making the AFM a real union,” but I’m
sure that others in that movement would have phrased it rather
differently.
It was originally a movement of people within the
recording and symphonic communities, but it always had some others on
its side. Often they were the younger local officers (younger at the
time, anyway) - people like Ray Hair and Bill Moriarity and Ken Shirk
and Steve Young and many others. Those of us in the player conferences
didn’t always think of people like Ray and Bill and Ken as on the same
side as us, and perhaps they didn’t either - but, in terms of the
long-term goal of “making the AFM a real union,” we were in the same
trench getting bombarded by the same folks.
My experience of that
movement was as one of frequent failures and lots of resistance from
AFM Conventions and the officers they elected over the years. We’d put
forward big ideas for change and come away with tiny technical
modifications to the bylaws that, in practical terms, made no real
difference. We’d fight to get organizing departments and end up with one
or two overworked staffers with multiple portfolios. We'd get slapped
down by the IEB and the Convention, over and over.
The football would be snatched away and we'd fall flat on our asses,
time and time again.
But
this convention represented the eruption of that subterranean change
into Convention decision-making. For once, delegates didn’t regard AFM
finances as a zero-sum game and demand that the AFM do more with less.
Quite the opposite; they approved a financing package that not only
provided the AFM with substantial new revenues, but would also cause
their locals significant pain. They did so in large part because the IEB
treated them as adults and told them, in detail, what they were going
to do with the money - also a first for the AFM, at least since I’ve
been going to conventions (my first was 1995; you can read about my
experience here).
And, for the first time, a symphonic labor
dispute became the emotional center of an AFM Convention. I have no
doubt that, had the Minnesota lock-out happened in 2010 or 2007 or even
1995, the Convention would have taken note and passed a nicely-worded
resolution of support for the Minnesota Orchestra musicians. But this
Convention came to a screeching halt in order that the delegates could
fall over themselves to donate money to Local 30-73, on the unspoken
basis that the Local deserved the support because of what they had
endured for their members. That would not have happened before this
year.
So, while the AFM has been quietly morphing into a
different institution for a number of years, this was the Convention
where it emerged from its cocoon. I’ve seen a few historic moments in my
life, most of then bad. This was a good one. I’m glad I was there to
watch it.
(cross-posted to Polyphonic.org)
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