Download The
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
By Tret Fure As we celebrate the 20th birthday of Local 1000, I raise a glass to the ones who came before me and first dreamed this union, and then worked hard to make it a reality. It wasn’t easy, but our founders persevered and we now stand 500 members strong. I joined Local 1000 in 1999, 6 years after our Charter and it was one of the most important decisions I have made in my life. I have been a member of the AFM since I was 16 but Local 1000 changed the way I looked at the union and at my future. I have friends, comrades, people to whom I can turn for solidarity, for protection and for advice. As I approach 65, I know that I have a pension waiting for me, one that I can further grow as I continue to work into very old age. I feel proud of the work we have done to get where we are and I am proud of the work we are doing to further us in all our endeavors. Our Fair Trade Music Campaign is a model for other Locals and the AFM at large. We have successfully signed up many venues, ensuring a fair wage for all working musicians. We have also negotiated collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) with several festivals to pay good wages and pension contributions and to provide decent working conditions for the ones who bring their beautiful work into all our lives. Well done Local 1000!! INSIDE: page 2–Local 1000 Turns 20 • page 3–Celebration • page 4–Why I Joined, Remembering Steve Peters and Jon Fromers • page 5–Clearwater Now, Recommended Amendments, Meeting Notice • page 6–Office & Board Changes • page 7–Paul Taylor New Deal is the official organ of Local 1000. Please read it carefully. Upcoming Meetings... Fall Board Retreat: Oct 23-Oct 25th St. Louis, MO (with FARM) Fall Membership Meeting Thursday, Oct 24th 5:30-7:00 pm, By Karen Newman New Deal Committee met annually at the Song Dinner included AFM Local 1000 President, Tret Fure, will Exchange to report their individual progress to (Prior to FARM Meeting) attend the Great Labor Arts Exchange this the group. St. Louis, MO year to honor her local’s 20th birthday at its John O’Conner was the organizer of the birthplace, and she encourages her members to New Deal Committee and actively recruited www.local1000.org attend too. This is where it all began” said Fure. new followers and moved the project forward. Find Local 1000 The Great Labor Arts Exchange, formerly One of the first steps was to send out a on Facebook & Twitter known as the Song Exchange was organized survey to traveling musicians to get feedback thirty-five years ago by Joe Glazer in Silver on what they would like the union to do 212-843-8726 for them. Many remember recruiting other E-mail: [email protected] Spring, MD at what was then called the Meany Center. The objective was to bring traveling traveling musicians and spreading through the Amy Fix: [email protected] musicians together to present new songs tied to “Showcase Free Zone” held at Folk Alliance. (through 8/15/13) union and social justice activism. And it did! It was a hotel suite where the New Deal Co-Office Managers: Colin Dean Charlie King described the group of Committee invited musicians to come and sing Richard Coombs traveling musicians attending the Song together for the joy of singing in a spirit of Exchange in the early days as “geographic community and solidarity. Many came for the gadflies” that didn’t fit into AFM’s structure free beer and peanuts; still, they were willing LOCAL 1000 OFFICERS: for geographic locals. It was not possible to stay to discuss the merits of a union for President: to join every local where they traveling musicians. TRET FURE Charlie King was known as New 608-469-4007 • [email protected] performed for one night as soloists or small ensembles. Deal’s “pension guy.” He created Canadian Vice-President: Yet most of them embraced the a national scale so that when a KEN WHITELEY contract was filed the contributions 416-533-9988 • [email protected] concept of unionism and many performed regularly for union would be uniform. King said that Vice President: his desire to make music his DEBRA COWAN gatherings. The Song Exchange vocation, and to have the freedom 508-662-9746 • [email protected] became the annual meeting of to choose jobs he wanted to do Secretary-Treasurer: traveling musicians/ activists. STEVE EULBERG John McCutcheon recalls a 1983 were what motivated him to develop 970-222-8358 • [email protected] lunch discussion about union war John McCutcheon, the pension plan for traveling Midwestern Regional Rep stories such as the airline and mine former Local 1000 musicians. When he presented his AARON FOWLER strikes and the solidarity workers President, expressed employers with a contract they 316-207-4715 • [email protected] who demonstrated showed as they would realize that performing was Western Regional Rep love for musicians entered the belly of the beast. his job, and he needed to be paid. DANIEL BOLING who fill a silent “Charlie was relentless, eventually 505-228-2530 • [email protected] Charlie King asked, “Wouldn’t it world with song, using AFM’s own language to Eastern Regional Rep be great if we felt the way these and gratitude to all CHARLIE PILZER people felt about their unions?” At shape the final proposal to show those who worked 301-891-9035 • [email protected] that moment, the paradigm of “a that it could be done,” said John Geographical Un-Local” for traveling diligently to make McCutcheon, crediting King’s New Deal Editor: Steve Eulberg musicians was born, and the New the career choice refusal to take “no” for an answer in his pursuit of access to the AFM Contributing Editors: Deal Committee was created. easier for those Debra Cowan, Joe Jencks Essentially, an organizing who follow. pension plan as the foundation for successful recruitment of new Graphic Editor: Jan Hammond committee to build a structure that would suit the needs of musicians members. Member News Editor: One year AFM International President Marty Joe Jencks on the road, the New Deal Committee started to organize other traveling troubadours they Emerson attended the Song Exchange. Anne NEW DEAL is the official organ of the North American Feeney, a relative newcomer to the event, Traveling Musicians Union, Local 1000, AFM met on their journeys. Over the next decade the 2 NEW DEAL • Summer 2013 AFM Local 1000 met at the Highlander Center in 2011. The local is both the largest and fastest growing local in AFM. asked him when AFM would recognize traveling and said he wasn’t going to sing. He please visit: musicians and let them form their own local. conducted what he called a “membership http://www.laborheritage.org/?p=1309 Emerson’s response was, “Interesting idea.” auction” to get fifty signatures to create the Encouraged, the New Deal Committee started local. He did, and Local 1000 was born. to submit proposals to AFM international. The Song Exchange evolved into the Great With each accepted proposal the international Labor Arts Exchange, and is celebrating its became more responsive. John O’Conner thirty-fifth anniversary this year. The event remembers feeling relief and gratitude when is still a gathering place for activists in social the traveling musicians were first allowed to justice, environmental issues, and unions. It is send their contracts in to the international both a retreat and a training ground for and their staff would work out all of the organizers and those who want to learn how details with the locals along the tour. to use labor culture to advance their cause Another step on the path to recognizing more effectively by using, music, posters, differences between traveling musicians and spoken word, dance and creativity. the rest of AFM’s membership led to the This year the theme is Gonna Take Us All. creation of a phone number (1-800 ROAD Many will recognize the theme as the title to GIG) to call if the artists were not paid after one of many great songs written by the late the performance and had to move on the next Jon Fromer, a member of Local 1000 and a day. In 1991 the New Deal Committee attended regular attendee of the Great Labor Arts the AFM national convention and proposed Exchange. Two of the many exciting events an amendment to the constitution to create a planned are a song writing contest and Anne Feeney received the 2011 Utah local for traveling musicians. It was accepted. a photo contest with cash prizes. All AFM Phillips Lifetime Service to Labor Award in At the Song Exchange in 1993 John members are cordially invited to attend. For 2011, presented by John O’Connor at the McCutcheon took his turn at the microphone more information and online registration, Local 1000 Highlander Retreat. NEW DEAL • Summer 2013 3 music festival in Mountain View, Arkansas, and was a member of the Foolkiller and its successor, CrossCurrents Culture Unlimited, from that time until his death, performing in many concerts and acting in many plays... by Peter Alsop He was a host of the folk music show Foolkiller Folk on KKFI from 1989 to the present time, When I had children, I saw that I was a longterm supporter and volunteer at the spending whatever money I had on our food, station, and was on the air on the Sunday clothing, shelter and education.