Our new team has gotten off to a flying start. Vice President Acosta and Secretary/Treasurer Kruvand and I have been meeting, talking, working together and working things out. We are really fortunate to have John in the building, bringing his skill, knowledge and experience, and he and I are working closely together on our new roles.
We are making change, in sync and as a team, even when that change is hard. This month, we made the very difficult decision to externalize some of our in-house services, laying off two employees. In each case, our moves were driven by cost savings, reducing the cost to our members by over half. These actions were painful, but fiscally necessary.
I have been doing a deep dive into our live performance collective bargaining agreements, or CBA’s, contracts covering a broad range of different workplaces. We’ve begun creating wage scale charts for our orchestras, so that members can have some transparency about the wages, H&W, Pension and other elements of the many orchestras in our jurisdiction. We look forward to not only negotiating each contract one by one, but bringing committee representatives together to share notes, thoughts and experiences.
You’ve heard about the Teaching Artists of the Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles (YOLA) and associated programs unionizing for the first time with Local 47. We are excited to get to work with these courageous member-leaders in developing a successful approach to a collective bargaining agreement that works for them.
We’ve reported earlier but it bears repeating; motion picture wages in 2025 were slightly more that 1 million dollars up from 2024. While production in California is only just beginning to see the benefits of the new enhanced film/TV tax credits, production in other states and provinces has produced more AFM scoring here in LA. Nonetheless, musicians are looking hard and deep at how to capture more scoring onto AFM contracts, and Local 47 will play a key role in evaluating proposals, developing and sharing research, and strategizing for a more abundant future.
Local 47 is also a keystone voice in the AFM negotiations with the major record labels, for our Sound Recording Labor Agreement. Negotiations began earlier in January, and will resume in New York in March, where I will be representing our Local, alongside our brilliant Rank-and-File Representative Caleb Vaughn-Jones. AI issues are front and center, along with modernizing reporting processes, compliance, health care and other issues.
I know lots of us have questions and thoughts about all of these issues. I will be instituting a series of Zoom-based “AMA with the President” beginning on Friday, February 6, at 11 a.m. We will be sending a link out inviting you to participate in a Zoom hour. This is your chance to AMA – Ask Me Anything! Let’s talk!
As a final note, I think we can all agree that it is painful to watch the nightly news. All of us are immigrants, whether first generation, 3rd generation or 50th generation, every one of us either came here from somewhere else in the world or descended from those who did so. Liz Shuler, the President of the AFL-CIO, spoke about current Administration actions, observing that “they are targeting workers—many of whom are union members. An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us.”
Let’s all stay safe. Let’s all stay peaceful. And let’s all be brave, and have the courage of our convictions and values.
In solidarity,
Marc Sazer
President