Source: Union Accuses Movie Studios of Bilking Musicians on Reused Music | Variety
A message from President John Acosta: Why union membership is important for musicians
Musicians Union Sues Interstellar Robocop | Variety
Go Paperless with the Film Fund!
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Keeping the Score
LAANE, the LA Alliance for a New Economy, has produced a groundbreaking, comprehensive study, authored by Jon Zerolnick, titled “Keeping the Score: the impact of recapturing North American film and television sound recording work”. While the report focuses on Southern California, it presents a powerful model for approaching employment of musicians in the entertainment industry throughout North America.
This report concludes that by increasingly offshoring recording work, Hollywood studios and production companies are saving relatively small amounts of money. These savings, however, have disproportionate costs for musicians, taxpayers, and the broader economy. Hollywood can easily afford to meet the top employment standards for musicians, thereby not only providing ample quality employment, but strengthening domestic economies.
Who gets left out of all those tax incentives? Musicians
Important U.S. Pension Legislation Alert
Dear Colleagues,
As you may be aware, last week Congress passed a spending bill to prevent a federal government shutdown. Attached to the legislation were 162 pages of changes to the government’s multi employer pension rules. Many of these were technical modifications to the existing law. However, a significant new provision would allow certain financially troubled Funds to lower benefits already earned by participants, including those receiving pensions. The provisions would apply only to those Funds facing imminent insolvency (within 10 to 20 years). Each eligible Fund’s trustees could decide whether or not to use the provisions and, should they decide to apply them, there is a provision for a participant vote to reject the reductions, although it is at present unclear how that would work. No benefit could be lowered to less than 110% of the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation’s guarantees, right now just under $13,000 a year. Those provisions would not apply to the AFM-EPF at present since it is currently projected to be solvent through at least 2047, which is the longest period for which the actuaries have made projections.
Bill Moriarty, Laura Ross, Brian Rood, Phil Yao
AFM-EPF Trustees
This expresses our individual views; if the Board of Trustees subsequently issues an official statement, we will provide it to you right away.