Musicians Union?

Flamadiddle28

Junior Member
I'm just curious as to what the musicians union is, and what are the benefits of being a part of it? Also could I join since I'm only 16? Any help is appreciated, Thanks!
 
It's a collective bargaining organization. Basically it represents a group of members (the musicians) and negotiates that they get paid a fair rate for the hours worked. It can also help provide the musicians with health care benefits and retirement benefits. It can also help musicians find jobs through employers who agree to the union rules (meaning, potential employers would abide by the rules stated by the union as to what they should pay the musician). This is what most unions are at the most basic level.

The difficult thing about being a musician, is of course, finding and getting regular work. So unless you are working for an employer who abides by the union contract, there would be no need to join the union. I was told to join the union when I got a union job - in fact, the union will come and find you anyway. My current employ with Disney is under a union contract and I was required to join the union before my particular show opened.
 
Unions stick up for the little guy. Without that musos would be back to slavery.

Pretty much this, if you aren't in the MU you don't earn any wages (it all goes to simon cowell). If you are in the MU you don't pay any sort of administration fee which may or may not make financial sense.
Riddles.
 
One of the benefits is being re-paid for re-use and new use. For example, when home videos began selling commercially, union work was rewarded with additional payments for "new" use.

There are also residual payments that the union keeps track of. If you do a TV show, and it airs again, you get paid again, typically at a lower rate, but still "mailbox money" as it's known.

I just got 15 new use checks for tracks I played on that were used in Behind The Music! They were definitely not expected, but certainly nice to receive! Had I not been a union member, I still would have been paid when I first recorded the tracks, but that would have been the end of it.

Bermuda
 
One of the benefits is being re-paid for re-use and new use. For example, when home videos began selling commercially, union work was rewarded with additional payments for "new" use.

There are also residual payments that the union keeps track of. If you do a TV show, and it airs again, you get paid again, typically at a lower rate, but still "mailbox money" as it's known.

I just got 15 new use checks for tracks I played on that were used in Behind The Music! They were definitely not expected, but certainly nice to receive! Had I not been a union member, I still would have been paid when I first recorded the tracks, but that would have been the end of it.

Bermuda

Yes, if you're working "union shop" gigs (like TV shows) it's essential to be involved. For the local club scene, it's not going to serve your purposes but to have a professional affiliation is a good thing.

Protip- IF you find yourself on a union gig, even if you don't sing, request a mic because it pays more due to the fact you are drumming and "singing". :D
 
Yes, if you're working "union shop" gigs (like TV shows) it's essential to be involved. For the local club scene, it's not going to serve your purposes but to have a professional affiliation is a good thing.

Protip- IF you find yourself on a union gig, even if you don't sing, request a mic because it pays more due to the fact you are drumming and "singing". :D

Hahaha! Like 'doubling' ;)

If you want a crass education on being a union musician, listen to Frank Zappa's tune, Yo Cats. That'll be the definitive statement on what it means to be in the musicians' union ;)
 
It's a collective bargaining organization. Basically it represents a group of members (the musicians) and negotiates that they get paid a fair rate for the hours worked. It can also help provide the musicians with health care benefits and retirement benefits. It can also help musicians find jobs through employers who agree to the union rules (meaning, potential employers would abide by the rules stated by the union as to what they should pay the musician). This is what most unions are at the most basic level.
close....with collective bargaining, (generally) both sides delegate bargaining power to a few hands, and both the union membership and the employer would abide by the contract. heh
 
OP, where are you located?

In the UK the Musician's Union is really a bit outdated now unless you are a London based theatre musician or do a lot of TV work and to help get you MU rates for those jobs.

Union closed shops (where you have to be a memeber of a specific union to do a specific job) are illegal in the UK for any sphere of work, including music so the requirement that existed 30/40 yrs ago to be a member has long since gone.

I've worked professionally and semi-professionally around the north of England for theatres and orchestras for nigh on 30yrs and never needed to be a member of the MU. The problem with it is that the market for musicians in London is unique in the UK and the MU are basically irrelevant anywhere else. Try asking for MU rates in most provincial regions for most theatre and orchestral jobs and you'll be laughed out of the room.

If you are 16 then there's little to no point in joining, except you get a 'free' diary! Up to you of course, but if you're in the UK then I wouldn't bother personally.
 
As Bermuda stated residuals are what keeps you going after you've been working for 20+ years and you've started to semi-retire or slow down. It's great to get union checks in the mail for past work.
 
As Bermuda stated residuals are what keeps you going after you've been working for 20+ years and you've started to semi-retire or slow down. It's great to get union checks in the mail for past work.


That maybe the case in the US, but not in most other places. In the UK the MU has no role in residual payments at all, that's handled by something called the Performing Rights Society.
 
Just my opinion, from a band member of an unsigned band (or, to be more precise, a band member signed to the bands own label)

One of the MUs major 'aims' in the UK is to address the 'pay to play' and 'play for nothing' trend.

It's achieved absolutely nothing and is absolutely toothless.

Ironically, like all 'good' Unions here, the Musicians Union most definitely ensure they get paid of course.
 
It's achieved absolutely nothing and is absolutely toothless.

Much of that comes from the lack of solidarity among its members. Let's be honest, if many players over the decades hadn't agreed to work for less, we wouldn't be getting the same pay now as in the '70s. There wouldn't be free gigs and pay-to-play at the club level. But, I'm not sure being able to enforce union scale is even realistic anymore, and frankly, "scale" is not that great.

Ironically, like all 'good' Unions here, the Musicians Union most definitely ensure they get paid of course.

And of course that's why the unions are up in arms about their members doing non-union dates... the union doesn't get their cut from those!

But, there are certain situations where it is essential and mandatory that you be in the union, and for the players with consistent work (such as TV, symphonies and live theater,) it's a good thing.

Bermuda
 
Much of that comes from the lack of solidarity among its members. Let's be honest, if many players over the decades hadn't agreed to work for less, we wouldn't be getting the same pay now as in the '70s. There wouldn't be free gigs and pay-to-play at the club level. But, I'm not sure being able to enforce union scale is even realistic anymore, and frankly, "scale" is not that great.



And of course that's why the unions are up in arms about their members doing non-union dates... the union doesn't get their cut from those!

But, there are certain situations where it is essential and mandatory that you be in the union, and for the players with consistent work (such as TV, symphonies and live theater,) it's a good thing.

Bermuda

Sorry...my snarky comment about the Union getting paid relates to Union subscriptions.

There is a hot potato in the UK regarding Union leaders who, generally speaking, now take very sizeable fat cat salaries, having dragged the socialist ladder up from behind them.

To be fair, I guess if they do a good job for their members, then it could be argued that they earn the salary. Problem is that generally they don't.

I can fully imagine that people making a living out of playing music rely on and benefit from the Musician's Union and rightly so that they do.

There' just a part of me as an 'amateur' that wishes they'd just STFU about pay to play and the like because frankly they (for the reasons no doubt you have mentioned) cannot do anything about it. And I agree...it's down to the musicians themselves that the situation is as it is. But the MU blather on about it just to suck people such as myself in....like they can do ANYTHING about it. And after two or three years you quickly realise that as an amateur you're just throwing money into the pocket of faceless people who are no more behind you as a musician than the venues who don't want to pay.

It may be different in the US. I'm no fan of current day unions. I don't believe there is a more self-serving bunch of people in existence I'm afraid and in many cases their founding unionist forefathers I'm convinced would be ashamed of what they've become.
 
Much of that comes from the lack of solidarity among its members. Let's be honest, if many players over the decades hadn't agreed to work for less, we wouldn't be getting the same pay now as in the '70s. There wouldn't be free gigs and pay-to-play at the club level. But, I'm not sure being able to enforce union scale is even realistic anymore, and frankly, "scale" is not that great.

Some of the blame goes on the Union itself.
So many times in the past I'd call the Union, and get put on hold, disconnected, forwarded to a voice mail box that full, or otherwise found myself un-helped. If I did get a live person, it would be someone's grandmother telling me about how it worked in the 1950's, which is all fine and dandy, but of no help to me in modern times.

At one point, the Union's main selling point was you could rent the official union rehearsal spot at an hourly rate that was MORE than numerous hourly facilities near by that didn't require paying dues just to rent.

The Union was never pro-active in getting people to sign up, or explaining to younger musicians why it might be beneficial to join. Instead they seemed consistency stuck in the past, thinking just because they exist that's good enough.

When pay-to-play took over the Sunset strip, where was the Union? When Metallica sued Napster over file sharing, where was the Union? Why was BAM, then Musicians Contact Service and then Craigslist allowed to be the de-facto ways for bands and musicians to look for on another instead of through Union message boards?


Even today, their audition listings only cover symphonies
http://www.promusic47.org/auditions.html

IMHO, the Union just failed to ever keep up with the times.

On the flip side, rock and it's various offshoots, is music based on rebellion and youth. And a Union just seems so opposite of why most bands exist.
 
When pay-to-play took over the Sunset strip, where was the Union? When Metallica sued Napster over file sharing, where was the Union? Why was BAM, then Musicians Contact Service and then Craigslist allowed to be the de-facto ways for bands and musicians to look for on another instead of through Union message boards?

Although the AFM could have jumped in, they had no jurisdiction, and the effort would have been regarded - rightly so - as very self-serving. There probably haven't been union club dates since the '70s. I've been playing in L.A. since the mid-'70s, and I don't think I've ever encountered a union live date, except for a few occasions as an alum with a Jr. Orchestra in a union hall, where a few of the AFM members agreed to waive payment while performing with the non-paying organization.

IMHO, the Union just failed to ever keep up with the times.

Unfortunately for the union, most gigs don't demand their involvement. I think they're exactly where they ought to be, until such time when they have a grip on venues and players again.

That is either not likely to happen anytime soon, or may indeed happen sooner than we think, based on live performance becoming the primary income generating activity for musicians (in the absence of significant song sales.)

As I've said, I'm still an AFM member. Sometimes I wonder why I fork over $210/yr for membership, and other times, I'm glad they're keeping track of my career.

BTW, I just received a 16th check, this one for a song I cut in 1988!

Bermuda
 
Although the AFM could have jumped in, they had no jurisdiction, and the effort would have been regarded - rightly so - as very self-serving.

But that's my point. They don't do anything to serve themselves or advocate for musicians. And thus, no one pays attention to them.


Unfortunately for the union, most gigs don't demand their involvement. .
Which again is my point. Gigs don't demand their involvement, because they have nothing to offer the gigging musicians.

until such time when they have a grip on venues and players again
But how can they have a grip on venues and players when they don't make the effort?

They've made it pretty clear, unless you're in a symphony or doing TV work, they have no use for musicians, and thus, most musicians have no use for the Union.
 
Gigs don't demand their involvement, because they have nothing to offer the gigging musicians....
They've made it pretty clear, unless you're in a symphony or doing TV work, they have no use for musicians, and thus, most musicians have no use for the Union.

In order to not appear to have a monopoly or otherwise make excessive demands, the union has turned a blind eye to venues that didn't want to be "union houses", and that's how they lost their grip. Indeed, should they have that kind of grip? I'm all for fairness, but the tail doesn't wag the dog - players don't go to venues and make salary demands, it just doesn't work that way for 99.9% of the bands in the trenches. Unions were meant to make employment fair for the workers, but there's a line where it becomes unfair for the employer. Some unions have crossed it, the AFM has not, and should not, lest you see venues that hire bands for peanuts, stop having live music altogether.

Also, in L.A., union scale is very unimpressive to start with, and downright shameful once the work dues - and potentially state & federal withholdings - are extracted.

Bermuda
 
You have to be a member of the union to do that gig that I do. When I calculate out that I'm actually only rocking out for 46 minutes in anonymity, but get paid for being there for five hours, then the union is good at keeping it fair like that ;)
 
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