Buckles Blog: BANDS #5

Monday, May 11, 2020

BANDS #5

9 comments:

Chic Silber said...: Are those a couple of musicians

dressed as teamsters or are they

teamsters that doubled in brass; 12 May, 2020 09:44
Roger Smith said...: Even if cardholders for both unions, as circus guys they were Generally Useful.; 12 May, 2020 19:04
Chic Silber said...: Ringling's in house union

back from Mr John's time

was a Teamster's local

There was no AFM back them

I don't recall a local to

support Generally Usefull; 12 May, 2020 19:13
Tony Greiner said...: Wikipedia says the American Federation of Musicians was formed in 1896, starting in Indianapolis. I don't know when they got big. When I was playing on the cheap for Dorey Miller and others, I was shocked to learn that the Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers band was union, and had very good pay. A doggone good band, too. I think that was an agreement from a strike in the 1950s, but would be curious to learn that history.; 12 May, 2020 19:44
Chic Silber said...: How many (if any) of you can

remember when Feld tried to

create an alternate musician's

union to fight AFofM after an

episode in the Garden when a

dress rehearsal was required

that enabled the evening show

to be played at overtime but

many of the rehearsal players

were substituted at night

Things went balistic; 12 May, 2020 19:54
Chic Silber said...: A corporation "Caspet Music"

was created to represent the

newly formed union which

hired musicians that had to

ride a bus with an armed

guard to protect them as

well as using a separate

entrance to the buildings

Likely to have been in the

mid to late 70s but that

didn't last long; 12 May, 2020 20:01
Eric said...: That dispute occurred in 1977. It came about when the Circus approached AFM National Headquarters and asked to negotiate a first time-ever national contract. (Prior to that, the Circus had been dealing directly with each AFM Local and its individual requirements.)

When the negotiators finally sat down together, the Circus presented a list of what it wanted in the new contract:

1. The size of the band and the number of local musicians hired would be the same for all the cities where the show appeared. (No longer would union “feather bedding” policies force the Circus to hire 30 or more musicians in certain cities.)

2. The number of touring musicians that traveled with the show would be increased from 3 to 5.

3. Local musicians would be paid according to a new 3-tiered wage scale (established by the Circus) that was based on box office returns. Major cities with big box office takes such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago would be designated as Class A towns, and their musicians would be paid the highest of the three scales per performance. Others would be classified as Class B towns or (as in the case of many of the smaller cities on the “rodeo circuit”)

4. Wage scales would be based on a 4-hour call. (Since no Ringling performance ever ran much over 3 hours, this eliminated for all time the possibility of the Circus ever having to pay overtime.)

5. The Circus would no longer pay local musicians for the 2-hour rehearsal that was held prior to the start of the first performance.

6. The Circus would no longer pay a local union contractor to hire the musicians but would do all the hiring itself. (After years of collection W-2 information for payroll purposes, the Circus had compiled its own roster with the names, addresses and telephone numbers of every musician who had ever worked for them.)

7. The Circus reserved the right the bring in musicians from outside a particular Local if that Local’s musicians were not capable of playing the show’s music.

8. The Circus would not have to pay local musicians extra if audio of the band was used by local radio and TV stations as part of their news coverage of the Circus’ appearance in town.

The union negotiators understandably rejected all of these conditions and contact talks soon broke off. It was then that the Circus played its trump card: since no contract was in effect with either the AFM or any of its Locals, the Circus exercised its option to use non-AFM musicians. Surprisingly, the Teamsters and the American Guild of Variety Artists didn’t support the AFM by pulling their people off of the show. And the AFM touring musicians with the show continued to work.

Then it was reported that the Circus’ musicians would be allowed to decide who they wanted to have represent them. (There was even talk that the Teamsters’ Union had offered to represent the show’s musicians!)

Recognizing that it was in a no-win situation, AFM National Headquarters quietly re-opened contract negotiations and agreed to all of what the Circus had asked for.

When word of this reached the Locals, there was understandably some grumbling, particularly in those cities that had been classified as Class B or C towns. The only excuse that National Headquarters could make was that it was the only way for AFM musicians to once again be hired by the Circus.

This contact was to remain in effect for another 17 years. By 1994, conditions within the commercial music industry were favorable for a new contract that allowed the Circus to have bands made up of musicians who traveled as part of the company.; 13 May, 2020 11:59
Chic Silber said...: I was certain that you would remember Eric

I believe the effort didn't finish the year

The bus that was purchased by "Caspet" soon

became the new performer's bus when the 2nd

show bus was wrecked by Schwartzie's son; 13 May, 2020 13:02
Roger Smith said...: Great post, ERIC. Most of us never get the skinny on union wranglings.; 14 May, 2020 05:37

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