The AFM Observer

Black Helicopters invade 1501

There have been some really good conspiracies theories floating around the orchestra world to account for the rash of labor disputes and work stopppages in our business. But tHe cOMMITTEe has sprinted so far ahead of the pack with their latest that they are, quite literally, uncatchable for the iStupid Award for 2012:

When Ray Hair was running as the RMA surrogate at the last AFM convention we at the COMMITTEE clearly warned you what would happen if the RMA got control of the AFM.

We are now seeing the result and the chickens coming home to roost are huge indeed,.. Everything for the RMA and everyone else neglected or shoved aside.

Orchestra after Orchestra paying the price for a federation only concerned with the welfare of a handful of recording musicians interests. Lock-outs and losses of seasons from faulty negotiations, or in the case of Los Angeles corrupt ones, the results favorable only to the orchestras stuffed with RMA members, be they the Pasadena Symphony or the LAO (Los Angeles Opera).

So - Minnesota and the SPCO and Atlanta and Indianapolis and Jacksonville and Spokane are not the fault of the League of American Orchestras, or greedy boards, or an anti-union plot. It's the RMA's fault.

Wow. Just wow.

I will say that the cOMMITTEe has done me a service with this particular bit of lunacy. I have friends in the RMA, and I trust them. But, if I were to take the cOMMITTEe's accusations at face value, I might be a little uneasy. Fortunately I learned a long time ago that the best measure of the veracity of a source when discussing issues in which I don't have a deep background is how accurate they are in covering an issue I really do understand. If there's one thing I do understand, it's how the AFM, its locals, and orchestra committees interact when negotiating labor agreements. And the idea that the current unpleasant is caused by "faulty negotiations" due to the AFM's lack of interest in any cause other than making RMA members as rich as Mitt Romney is as clinically insane an idea as any outside the writings of Krafft-Ebing.

Good job, cOMMITTEe. Enjoy your award.

 

 

UDR on the AFM

The latest issue of Union Democracy Review, the newsletter of the Association for Union Democracy, has an article I wrote about the AFM Convention. It's not exactly the "final thoughts" on the Convention that I promised I'd post here and didn't, but it's close enough:

The contemporary era of the American Federation of Musicians began with two events, both related to the fact that only a minority of the union's members are actually full time musicians. One was the revolutionary Roehl Report of the late 1980s which proposed to strengthen the independent role and power of the player conferences, the caucuses that represent musicians covered by union collective bargaining agreements (CBAs). The other was a financial "reform" plan submitted by a Blue Ribbon Committee and adopted by the 1991 convention; it proposed to alleviate the union's budgetary problems by increasing basic membership dues and thereby allowing more of the work dues to support administation of the CBAs. The June 2010 AFM convention in Las Vegas, its 98th, will be remembered for its unambiguous reaffirmation of the Roehl report and its first step toward ending the current financial model.

The headline event at the recent convention was the defeat of the incumbent president Tom Lee and four of his allies on the International Executive Board by a group led by Ray Hair, president of the Dallas-Ft. Worth local. Incumbent officers in the AFM rarely lose bids for re-election, and almost never by the kind of margins won by Hair's group. This electoral earthquake had many causes, but the chief reason was the delegates' desire to end the war between Tom Lee and the player conferences, the internal AFM caucuses that represent the interests of AFM members working under union contract in the recording, symphonic, and musical theater workplaces.

Lee, who had been elected in 2001 and reelected in 2007, the longest-serving AFM president in almost 40 years, strongly believed that locals were the only legitimate representatives of members within the AFM. This concept had been supplanted in the past few decades by the rise of the player conferences and their critical, albeit semi-official, consultative role in setting AFM policy, as proposed by Bill Roehl in 1989. Lee's relationship with the Recording Musicians Association, one of the player conferences, began to deteriorate shortly after his election in 2001 and, within a few years, had turned into open warfare. After his re-election in 2007, the war began to spread to the symphonic conferences as well, a conflict dramatically escalated by his refusal early this year to hire the symphonic conferences' recommended candidate for the position of Director of the Symphonic Services Division, even though the recommended candidate met the criteria he himself had laid down -- which his eventual hire didn't.

At the same time, Lee's allies in the Nashville and New York City locals (both major centers of CBA activity within the AFM) were defeated by local insurgent groups, at least in part due to their alliances with Lee. These defeats guaranteed that a major bloc of votes that had supported Lee in previous re-election bids would go against him this time. Dissatisfaction with Lee amongst sufficient additional local officers and the war with recording musicians gave Hair and his allies more than enough votes for a clear mandate to end the war and Lee's counter-revolution against the role of the player conferences.

But almost as important was what the convention refused to do, which was to simply provide the AFM more revenue from locals and musicians in the form of increased per capita dues and work dues on recording work. The International Executive Board's recommendations for substantial increases in both revenue streams met an avalanche of opposition from both large and small locals; an unusual alliance in recent AFM history.

What passed instead was a resolution directing the IEB to propose to the next convention substantive structural changes in how the AFM does business, as well as a very creative financial package. This package, which was proposed by the Joint Law and Finance Committee after consultations with the newly-elected president and the RMA delegates, did away with the much-hated fee on payments to recording musicians from the secondary market funds (the so-called "back-end" payments), substituting for it a flat fee to be charged recording musicians. What was so innovative was that the flat fee would be negotiated after the convention with the Electronic Media Services Steering Committee -- essentially the elected representatives of the recording musicians -- and would require ratification by the musicians who would pay the fee, establishing for the first time in AFM history a source of revenue for the national union requiring direct approval by rank-and-file members.

The significance of the defeat of the IEB financial proposal was two-fold. It was the first time since 1991 that an AFM convention had flat-out refused to approve a significant increase in revenue going to the national office, and demonstrated that most delegates were frustrated by the national union's continuing need for more money when their own locals were having to tighten their belts. More important for the long term, it marked a tacit acknowledgement that the concepts underlying the 1991 financial reforms had become unsustainable.

Those earlier reforms established a hefty per capita dues to fund the AFM's general operations while establishing national work dues on most work under AFM contract to finance the presidential departments dealing with that work. Unfortunately, in the two decades since those reforms, membership has shrunk to such an extent that more and more of the nominally dedicated work dues for those departments went to support general operations while the presidential departments were short-changed. The effect was to put an increasingly disproportionate financial burden on the relatively few members of the union who work fulltime as musicians while still obligating locals to charge membership dues which made union membership increasingly unattractive to members who did little or no work. The convention's rejection of the IEB financial proposal showed that the delegates believed that any further increases in either per capita or work dues would push significant numbers of members past the breaking point.

Proposals from the International Executive Board to reduce the number of rank-and-file members on the board of the AFM Employers Pension Fund and to substantially increase compensation for the three full-time officers of the national union died with a whimper when they were withdrawn by the IEB without ever coming to the floor -- a significant victory in particular for the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians, the largest of the symphonic player conferences, which had mounted a campaign amongst its members against the two proposals.

None of the serious external challenges faced by the AFM and its members were ameliorated by anything the 98th convention did. But the convention did face a clear choice between two philosophies of union governance. Fortunately for the future of the AFM and its members, the convention decisively chose the more democratic path.

Why I'm not voting for Tom again

I'm on my way to my 9th consecutive AFM Convention (8 as a voting delegate). If memory serves, Tom Lee ran for one or another AFM office at every one of those conventions. I can recall voting against him only once.

This convention will mark the second time I vote against Tom.

When Tom was elected President in 2001, I thought he'd do OK. He wasn't my ideal AFM president, but neither was the incumbent. He was obviously smart, he had good people skills, he was clearly politically skilled, he had some ideas about how the AFM could serve members that, while they weren't my priorities, were good ideas for the most part. I'd heard good things about him during his time as a Local officer. And he clearly got along with the RMA. What could go wrong?

As we now know, the answer was “pretty much everything.” It turned out that Tom had a fatal weakness for a president of a labor union: he couldn't handle criticism. No one likes being criticized, of course, and Tom has had to deal with his share of nasty anonymous attacks over the years. But the leader of any democratic organization has to deal with having his/her actions and policies criticized, often by people whose goodwill is necessary to do other business. No one is going to agree with the President all the time; certainly no one who is also an independent political actor with his/her own constituency.

How could it be otherwise? A union like the AFM, with its wildly diverse membership, is bound to have a lot of internal disagreements by its very nature. Either the President will never take a position on any of them, for fear of being criticized, or he/she will take positions that some people won't like - who will then be critical of .those positions. But, on other issues, those same people could become supporters, and previous supporters could become critics.

The ability to live with this and to be able to handle criticism and opposition on one issue from people whose support will be needed on other issues is a core skill for the president of any democratic entity. But Tom doesn't have it. Tom appears to take criticism - even predictable and “in bounds” criticism of his official actions - very, very personally. Not only does he get angry; he allows his anger to drive him to intemperate responses. Worse, he seems unable to distinguish critics from enemies - which, of course, tends to convert critics into enemies. Worst of all, he then appears to let his animosity towards his “enemies” drive his actions, rather than any recognizable principles of trade unionism.

There are all too many examples of Tom's reacting badly to criticism during his tenure. Last year's exchange between Tom and me in the pages of Union Democracy Review, while hardly the most egregious, is a good example.

The article I wrote was indeed critical of some of Tom's actions. But it was basically an attempt to describe the basis for the conflict between Tom's administration and the recording musicians. There was nothing critical about Tom personally, and I tried to avoid pejorative descriptions of any individual.

Tom's response was very telling. He consistently used pejorative language, negatively characterized those he viewed as his opponents in rather personal terms, and generally seemed rather to argue about personalities and motivations rather than the actual events and issues. For an AFM president to accuse recording musicians - his own members - of “bullying” and of not believing in “democracy and … trade union principles,” not only in public but in a non-AFM publication, is highly unpresidential behavior. And to use as an argument against those musicians the fact that they were receiving “six and in some cases seven-figure payouts annually” from the distribution funds was just jaw-dropping: most union presidents would consider well-compensated members an achievement, not an accusation.

This has been the pattern of his dealings with recording musicians almost from the beginning. He turned his anger over their early criticism into an apparent belief that they are undeserving AFM members, then into a crusade against the their player conference, and then into a crusade against player conferences in general. That of course only exacerbated the conflict. He turned critics - critics who, in fact, had supported his candidacy for president - into enemies.

Tom seems to forget that members have the right to criticize officers; arguably they even have an obligation to do so if they believe the officers are off-track. Members even have the right to criticize the officers unreasonably. Officers, on the other hand, have the constant obligation to respond to such criticism in a way that does not divide the union. Officers have an obligation to realize that members are often angry at officers, and for the same reason that they're often angry at employers - because they feel powerless. Officers have an obligation to remember that the best way to deal with members' anger is to listen even harder and more sincerely to what they have to say.

Officers, in short, have a constant obligation to be the grown-ups in the room. Members have a perfect right to behave unreasonably; officers get paid to lead. Tom seems to believe the opposite.

Not the least damage done to the AFM by Tom has been his attack on the unspoken compromise at the heart of the modern AFM system of governance - the idea that the players conferences represent members every bit as much as do Locals, albeit in different ways. Player conferences don't have the formal role at Conventions that Locals have - but, since the Blue Ribbon process and the Roehl Report of the late 1980s, they've been influential nonetheless. They've had great influence in national negotiations, in the running of the Presidential departments, and in the relationship of the AFM to Locals. As this was a compromise arrangement, intended to achieve the benefits of formal trade divisions without the political costs, it was completely satisfactory to no one. But it held the AFM together until Tom began to attack it and to describe Locals as the only "true representatives" of musicians.

Back in 2005, Ken Shirk wrote a long comment to a post of mine on the contest between Tom and Ed Ward at the 2005 Convention. Ken's comment is worth quoting from:

One of the untold tales in the saga of Tom Lee vs. the recording musicians unfolded at the end of 2003. The LA RMA newsletter had been distributed that contained scathing criticisms of Tom Lee and AFM behavior. Tom Lee called the IEB together seeking its advice on how to respond to the newsletter. In general, we counseled him to respond moderately. Tom Lee replied that since he had been personally attacked, he had to respond on the same level. We counseled him that a union leader had to rise above that kind of behavior with its members. After an hour's discussion, the entire IEB had come to the conclusion that Tom should not respond at all, because it would touch off an internal battle that would be bad for the union, and which would likely show no prospect of ending. However, Tom ignored all our advice, and fired off a very unfortunate counter-attack, which was deep down dirty and personal. It pretty much set the tone for the last 18 months.

At the following meeting of the IEB, two LA RMA members had filed a protest with the IEB, asserting that Tom Lee had exceeded his authority, misspending union funds in responding to the RMA newsletter in the manner that he had. They demanded that the IEB investigate whether Tom's letter had violated federal labor law.

General Counsel had done advance work on the issues and advised the IEB that Tom Lee's letter violated no statutes, and fell within his authority. While the IEB had not supported sending the letter, it also recognized the truth of General Counsel's advice. Quite surprisingly, however, General Counsel had prepared a draft response that went beyond the pale, containing, in addition to the legal reponses, very disparaging and condescending jabs at the two LA members. The Board interposed itself, directing that the response be toned down to the bare essentials.

…Tom was committed to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. He would not accept peace if it was not on his terms. With a way out of the mess with the recording musicians at hand, Tom Lee was not going to go there.

…We all tried as hard as we could to give Tom Lee good advice, to back him up as best we could, to salvage the situation and everyone's reputation and honor. In the final analysis, however, he chose to follow his personal urges and satisfy his ego instead of follow the wiser and saner advice of his fellow officers.

Remember, Ken was writing about events in 2003. Since Tom's re-election in 2007, things have gotten much worse.

• The AFM has chased a blog critical of Tom's administration out of existence, using the legal system (and no doubt lots of members' dollars) to try to force several major companies to disclose the identity of the blog's owner. But when did anonymous criticism of the President become a crime within the AFM?
  
• Several lawsuits were filed against the AFM - lawsuits which could have been avoided or settled had Tom been prepared to deal with those suing the, rather than simply provoke them. The AFM then used those lawsuits to launch a fishing expedition and go through the RMA's internal communications, even though the RMA was not a party to the lawsuit
  
• Tom and the IEB not only promulgated agreements with which the RMA - which, remember, is charged under long-standing AFM policy with representing the views of recording musicians to the IEB - strongly disagreed, but consistently refused to submit those agreements to ratification, violating not only a critically important Bylaw, but one of the AFM's strongest traditions of union democracy.
  
• Tom double-crossed the symphonic player conferences on the appointment of a new SSD Director. Not only did he wait months, during the most severe crisis in the orchestra industry in decades, to get around to filing the position. When he did so, he went behind the backs of ICSOM, ROPA and OCSM to appoint someone who wasn't even considered during the search because he didn't meet the the criteria that Tom himself set up at the beginning of the process. Instead, he let the chairman of ICSOM convince the person that ICSOM, ROPA and OCSM wanted - and who he had offered the job to - to accept the position, only to find out that Tom had then offered the job to someone else.
  
• Tom appointed a de facto Director of EMSD without the knowledge, much less the approval, of the EMSD Steering Committee. The person he appointed had no experience with AFM electronic media issues or contracts; in fact she didn't appear to have much adminstrative or negotiating experience at all. Then, of course, she was let go when Local 47 discovered that she was hacking into their computers.
  
• Tom appointed signatory employers to the union-side negotiating committee for the Jingle negotiators. One of them, who was not a musician but who co-owned a signatory company, had to join Local 802 expressly for the purpose of being appointed by Tom as a “rank-and-file” member of the negotiating committee.

I know that Tom took office in 2001 with the best of intentions. If anyone had told him, back in 2001, that he would ignite a crippling war between recording musicians and their union, or that he would be appointing employers to union negotiating committees, or that he would be spending lots of members' dollars on reading the RMA's email, or that he would be apointing department directors over the vociferious objections of the Player Conferences, he would have thought that those were insane predictions. It's certainly not what I thought would happen.

But it has. As a union president, Tom has lost his way. He's not going to find it again if he wins this election; past victories have made that clear. And the damage that will done in the next three years will dwarf what's been done so far.

It's time for him to go.

The email I wasn't sent

(Note: this post contains the email to which the letter in the next post responds to - I hope that makes sense - RL)

June 14, 2010

 
Pete Anthony
President, RMALA
 
Dear Pete,

I'm glad you issued a response to my letter because I feel it has opened the door to engage in a productive dialogue in order to resolve the difficulties that have taken up so much time and energy of too many of us.

Clearly, we view things differently.  Let's not forget - I was there too; and so was the entire International Executive Board.  The simple fact remains that the points I made in my letter were what was told to the IEB.  We all heard the words.  To characterize them as fantasy, word twisting, or just plain wrong is completely inaccurate.  I also have to clarify again that the lawsuits that were filed were not challenging IEB decisions.  They were challenging the By-laws.  Perhaps RMA has stepped back from its position, which I would view as a positive development in reaching a conclusion to our differences.

RMALA responds to something I haven't seen

To AFM Delegates From RMALA President Pete Anthony

June 15, 2010

Dear Joe,

Let's review what has happened.

First, you sent a letter to Convention Delegates of the AFM, which made very specific claims.  Much of what you wrote was in response to a letter calling for peace and unity that I had nothing to do with, but several of your assertions about “the price of peace,” referred directly to me and my colleagues.  You put words in my mouth, you revised history, and you said we made specific demands that in fact were never made.  And by the way, I wasn't cc'd on your letter.  This isn't an issue of differing interpretations, Joe, it's a problem of alternate realities.  You know it, I know it, and everyone on your cc list needs to know it.

Next, I responded to set the record straight, and requested that you not drag the good faith attempts we have made to craft real solutions with the IEB into the political fray of this convention.

Yesterday, you sent another public message to AFM Officers.  You said, “The issues are much too important to be treated as a political football,” … in an email blast to Officers around the AFM precisely one week before the AFM Convention.  You said you welcomed this “productive dialogue” - a public email exchange before an election - when you've had real opportunities to speak to me and others, in person, during any of your last 7 or 8 trips to L.A. over the past year a half.  Really, Joe?

RMALA responds to Parente

To AFM Delegates from RMALA President Pete Anthony

June 9, 2010

Dear Delegate,

I am not writing you to endorse candidates or take sides in an election.  My words were misquoted to you, and I am writing you to set the record straight.

I am writing in response to Joe Parente’s letter to the delegates of June 3, 2010, which contains reports about meetings I attended (see attached).  This letter makes a variety of wild claims, but it is most unfortunate that this letter makes a political football out of a 2008 meeting in Los Angeles, in which recording musicians were given to believe that they could speak freely and openly with the IEB. Our purpose was to reach peace and resolution. Parente’s letter is just plain wrong.

Fisking the ratifiers

I generally don't respond to campaign literature I post on the "candidate stuff" blog. Most of it is either content-free or consists of opinions. But the recent endorsement of Tom Lee by the so-called "recording ratifiers of New York" really deserves a detailed response.

There has been a long standing nonsensical practice in New York of allowing entrenched members of the RMA who lack the work history to ratify recording contracts to participate in contract negotiations, while simultaneously excluding AFM members who have the most experience in the field, and consequently, the most at stake in those negotiations. Tom Lee challenged this practice in recent contract negotiations for new Film, TV/Tape, and Commercial Announcement (Jingle) contracts. This “change” of policy has ruffled some feathers.

RMA is involved in national media negotiations because that's how the player conference system works. It's never been a requirement that people serving on AFM negotiating committees have to be eligible to ratify. Many Local officers would be barred from serving on any media negotiating committees if that were the case. In the symphonic world, it's not at all unusual for members of the ICSOM Media Committee, for example, to help to negotiate contracts to which one or more of their orchestras aren't signatories.

The Jingle Negotiations - an analysis

The letter from Local 802 member David Finck that I posted earlier today made public some disturbing details about the RMA's allegations regarding the recent jingle negotiations (aka negotiations for a successor agreement to the TV and Radio Commercial Announcements Agreement):

I recently attended some of the caucuses that led up to the negotiations for the jingle agreement and was absolutely shocked by what l saw. These meetings were attended by people who run the production houses: the very people who hire us. Moreover, they were actually invited by President Tom Lee. One of these employers was even brought into Local 802 a week before the negotiations so that a membership card could be issued thereby allowing this person to attend the caucuses and be a voting member of our union. AF of M president Tom Lee and the IEB members that were in the caucus room ignored the protests raised by several of us. (Jingle houses get huge creative fees and are in business with multi-million dollar Madison Avenue advertising corporations ..... they are not in partnership with musicians.)

The Jingle Negotiations

Apparently some... interesting... appointments were made by Tom Lee to the union-side negotiating committee for the recent Commercial Agreement negotiations:

May 25, 2010

Dear Fellow Musician,

My name is David Finck. I am a musician and union member. I write to you because of a deep concern about a development at our union, the American Federation of Musicians.

Book 'em, Danno

Local 47 continues to be unhappy that the AFM hacked its computers, if an email sent to its members yesterday is any indication:

 Dear Local 47 Members:

We know that many of you are concerned about the unauthorized downloading of Local 47 data by the AFM. This is a brief update about the actions taken by Local 47 to protect our data and to ensure that a proper and transparent investigation into this matter takes place.

First, the Local has filed a report with the Los Angeles Police Department (“LAPD”). We expect LAPD to contact the Local within the next week or so to obtain a statement from us.

Next, we have quarantined the AFM computers and disconnected them from our system. No further electronic downloading of our data by the AFM will be allowed until the Local concludes its investigation and determines what occurred and who was responsible for the AFM’s unacceptable conduct.

Also, we are in the process of retaining a forensic consultant who specializes in electronic data to assist us in our investigation. We expect to have the consultant on board by next week and, by the end of this month, to have a report to the membership on what data was taken by the AFM and if the AFM’s downloading may have comprised any personal/confidential information stored in the Local’s database.

This definitely suggests that whatever happened went beyond what Tom Lee claimed in an email blast to Local officers on April 20:

This message is to bring you up-to-date on a current AFM matter that recently came to my attention.   On February 9, 2009, I hired an Office Manager to manage the day-to-day operations of the West Coast Office (WCO).  I asked her to focus on increasing the new use billings and collections, which is one of the top priorities of the WCO.  In addition to regular office manager duties, she also coordinated a team approach to problem solving and brought all segments of the office together with an emphasis on communication, productivity and efficiency. 

During the reorganization of the office, it was clear that the AFM did not have many of the B-report forms readily available in order to invoice the companies using AFM recordings in a new medium.  In coordination with Local 47, the AFM was granted access to Ensemble, Local 47’s database, which allowed the Federation to retrieve B-report forms as needed.  This cooperative effort, which was mutually beneficial, had a significant impact in new use billings in 2009.

In order to enable the connection, the AFM purchased two computers and placed them in Local 47’s computer room.  Local 47 officials then linked the AFM computers to its Ensemble database.  Direct access to Local 47’s B-report forms streamlined new use billings and collections.  Please keep in mind that pursuant to Article 15, Section 7 of the Bylaws, “Locals shall submit copies of all Electronic Media report forms to the Federation.”  This ensures that the AFM accurately bills and collects payments on behalf of all musicians whose works are used in new mediums.  The AFM has not compromised any “confidential membership data” from Local 47’s database.  The AFM’s principle interest in having access to Local 47’s B-report form is to obtain pertinent information for new use billings and collections. 

At some point during the last few weeks I became aware that the WCO might have downloaded some of the B-report forms instead of locating and printing the B-report forms from Ensemble.  As a result of this unauthorized downloading Local 47 officials disconnected the WCO from access to Ensemble.  I confirmed that this was the case with President Vince Trombetta during the Jingles negotiations held in New York from April 6 to April 9, 2010.  President Trombetta can confirm that I stated during our conversation that this downloading without permission from Local 47 was completely unacceptable.  I further stated that I knew nothing about it, that had I been aware of it I would have immediately stopped it at once, it was not authorized by me and I would immediately launch an investigation into the matter.  That investigation is in process and whatever action is necessary to rectify this issue will be taken.

Why is “downloading some of the B-report forms instead of locating and printing the B-report forms” from the Local 47 system a big deal? Why is it “completely unacceptable” and a reason that Tom would “immediately launch an investigation into the matter”? And why would the head of the AFM’s West Coast office be placed on administrative leave because the AFM accesses data it was entitled to in one format rather than another?

I suspect that it’s a big deal because I suspect (as, obviously, does Local 47) that the unauthorized access wasn’t limited to B-report forms, but rather extended to data that Local 47 never agreed to share and which might well be protected from unauthorized disclosure to third parties by state and Federal law. Locals can have good reason to maintain and retain sensitive and confidential data about both members and their families. And this AFM administration has shown great curiosity in the past about certain members and their activities. Many of those members belong to Local 47.

If I was looking to find information about those members that I could use to discredit them politically - in advance of an important national convention, for example - I'd start my search in the Local 47 database. Of course, I don't have someone working for me who has access to Local 47's computers. But Tom did.

It’s telling that Tom is trying to downplay the incident while also trying to demonstrate how seriously he takes it. It’s doubly interesting that he sends out his response to the hacking, not to Local 47 or its potentially affected members, but to Local officers – who, of course, will be deciding his bid for re-election in a few weeks.

I wonder when the 18 1/2 minute gap will make its appearance.