Hi, I’m Xochitl Rodriguez, your friendly neighborhood Business Rep.!  I cover and help enforce the AFM’s Theatrical Motion Picture and Television Film Agreements for Local 47.  Part of my job includes ensuring that your wage checks get to you on time.  And while I do have control over the wage checks that get mailed to us at the Local once we receive them and we do our absolute best to ensure these go right back in the mail to you as quickly as possible, there is a lot I don’t have control over.  This includes the timing of when we receive those checks and whether they’ve come to us late. 

We’ve been noticing that it’s been harder to enforce timely payment provisions in the Agreements lately and harder to ensure you receive these payments on time.  I know how important it is to get paid as soon as possible, how urgent and endlessly stressful it can feel, and I hate to see these checks coming in a month or more after a session.  Both the Theatrical Motion Picture and Television Film Agreements, through their successor MOU, have the same, specific language around timely wage payments and late payment penalties: payment is due within 20 business days following the date of the session.  If payments are not made within this time and the musician or Union gives prompt written notice of such delayed payment, then late payment penalties can begin to be charged 15 business days after that notice is received.

Twenty business days is already quite a long time to wait for a wage check, and if it still hasn’t been issued fifteen business days after that, then certainly employers need to be penalized.  There needs to be some kind of incentive to get payments out by at most 20 business days post-session. 

Because of that written notice language in the Agreements, however, the only way I can help by billing for late payment penalties is when I am aware that a session is happening or has happened.  At times I get these advanced session notices from contractors or from folks anonymously, but it happens far less than you might think.  A lot of Theatrical Motion Picture and TV Film sessions occur without us knowing they are happening. This is one area where I can make an impact by asking you here to please report your sessions anonymously via the link on our website here:  http://afm47.org/sessions.  You can report by filling out this form either before or shortly after the session happens, as long as it contains the job title and date of the session so I can start tracking the days until payment is made.  Reporting can be done completely anonymously.  You can even save this form as a desktop shortcut, or to the home screen on your smart device through that link.

Please, help us help you by reporting your sessions anonymously as they happen, so we can better enforce timely payments to you.  It is essential to giving me the tools to enforce the Agreements, and it ensures we are all doing everything we can to get payments out on time and charge penalties when they’re not.  Together, we can make a difference and push back against late payments!

Please feel free to reach out to me at 323.678.2795 or at xochitl.rodriguez@afm47.org with anything!