Dear Colleagues,

We have just been informed by AFM President Ray Hair that the flagship Lionsgate Television show, Mad Men, is now an AFM series.

The American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada helped spearhead a variety of activities; calm private discussions, informational picketing at television filming locations, successfully gathering the support of a variety of AFM Locals and other entertainment industry Unions and Guilds. We should all be appreciative of the public and private efforts that helped create this success. And, the AFM will continue working to organize other employment at Lionsgate and elsewhere, and advance the interests of its members.

Now the musicians who provide the wonderful music for this incredibly successful TV show will be receive appropriate wages, get health care contributions and pension contributions.

And those musicians will be getting something else that was overdue – respect, and an acknowledgement of the dignity accorded to professional musicians.

Marc Sazer

President RMA