As we move toward the end of the first full year of our new administration, I’m proud of the progress that we have made in a number of areas. We have vibrant, effective rank-and-file groups working in a number of areas, from committees representing each of the orchestras and CBA groups we have negotiated with to our Trustees on the Local 47 Health & Welfare Fund, our new Wage Scale Committee, our General Membership Meeting Task Force, and the wonderful RMA and rank-and-file leaders of our Human Made Human Paid and film/TV campaigns. Our Executive Board has become a real team, with great participation and dialogue, and our Director of Organizing Eva Nevarez has become a great contributor and is deeply valued.

Yet we face real financial headwinds. Although much of our employment has stabilized (and film scoring in particular has shown real recovery), after laying off staff and economizing in every possible way, from technological efficiencies to cheaper envelopes, we are still facing red ink. We will be navigating further financial strain as a result of actions at the AFM Convention this past summer; the per capita payment that we make to the AFM on behalf of members will rise by $4 per year for three years. As we did not raise our membership dues for 2027, this means that Local 47 will be sending more of our finances to the AFM.

This isn’t our first rodeo with financial headwinds. As long as I’ve been around our Local – and the AFM itself – we have periodically had to ask members for more dues money, even as we have slowly but surely diminished in workplace density. And we have survived. We have all answered the call, and made sure that our Local keeps going. But survival has meant just keeping up, dog-paddling to keep our heads above water, living with a mindset of making sure that we don’t sink.

You deserve better. We all deserve a union that is growing and thriving, finding new areas to organize and new ways of organizing in the workplaces that we already have. There are so many areas of opportunity in our incredible region, from casuals, to studio work of all sorts, to major venue shows, to private teaching, to music education and more. But how do we get there from here?

Working with our Director of Organizing and our Executive Board, we will be planning for a process to create a Local 47 Strategic Organizing Plan, a roadmap for mapping, targeting and organizing musicians for union coverage – for better jobs, benefits and working conditions. We know that to accomplish this we will need voices from every workplace, from every constituency, so we will generate a plan for what a successful working group will look like.

We also know that to be successful across all of our areas we will need the partnership of the AFM Organizing Department, and I have already brought this to AFM President Tino Gagliardi and AFM Director of Organizing Gabe Kristal.

We can do this! We can create, and implement, a plan to transform ourselves to move beyond survival and maintenance into growth and success. This will take everyone’s participation, so be prepared – we will all be in this together!

Finally, by the time this column hits the airwaves we will be on the eve of historic midterm elections. I hope everyone will cast their ballots and participate in the sustenance of our democracy. Every single citizen has the right to vote without intimidation or interference, and I’m grateful to our Director of Organizing Eva Nevarez for representing Local 47 with the LA County Federation of Labor’s “Protect the Vote” campaign. It turns out that democracy and unions have something in common – they’re not like an ATM where you go to make withdrawals, they’re like a gym membership where you become a member in order to do the work. Let’s all do the work together!

In Solidarity,

Marc