Dear Members,
In the two months since I became your National Executive Director, I have had the pleasure of meeting a great many AGMA members in person and even more by telephone. I want to share with you my sincere satisfaction in having discovered that so many of you exhibit such an obvious commitment to the well being of your co-workers. Your service, as committee members and Board members and contract negotiators and delegates, epitomizes what’s best about this union.
These two months, however, have also been darkened by the unavoidable recognition that there have been serious deficiencies in the way in which AGMA represents some of its members. Although AGMA has structured a representative and participatory democracy, many members continue to feel disenfranchised. Some AGMA collective bargaining agreements are superb, while others are out of date and unwieldy. Moreover, AGMA has not done a particularly good job with contract enforcement, protection of member’s rights or maintaining an efficient and member-friendly administrative operation. AGMA members create America’s operatic and ballet heritage, yet many remain among the most poorly paid and badly treated performers.
Given my very positive experiences with so many of you over the past weeks, however, I am certain that these things can be fixed. Until I’ve had a chance to meet with more of you around the country, this letter will have to suffice as my way of saying hello and of sharing with you the ways in which I think we should start to fix our internal and external problems.
When AGMA was first created, its purpose (“to eliminate unfair practices and abuses in, and to enhance the image, the musical arts”) was the essence of simplicity and seemed, in the cauldron of the 1930’s labor movement, capable of being achieved. Regrettably, seventy years later, that purpose is still being frustrated. Fueled by an intense concern with the bottom line, management shows an antagonistic disrespect for the rights of talent. Worse, rather than carrying the standard of indivisible unity, some groups of our own members curry favor with management to advance their own parochial interests at the expense of their co-workers. These factors have led to a widespread belief among both AGMA members, and among those who employ AGMA members, that AGMA is ineffective and unresponsive. To some extent, this has been true.
A year ago your Executive Council and the leadership of the Board of Governors began to accept the need for sweeping, fundamental change. They hired professional consultants to recruit candidates for the position of National Executive Director and to begin the task of revitalization. I learned of their efforts, expressed my interest and was eventually selected to serve as your new chief executive officer. I bring to AGMA thirty-one years of union-side legal, transactional and administrative expertise and I have spent the last twenty-five years representing talent-driven creative employees. I knew in advance about many of the serious problems AGMA faced, but this job seemed to offer me an opportunity to pursue my own personal and professional goals relating to improving the lives of American workers.
As my first and overall task, your Board asked me to refocus all of AGMA’s priorities in an attempt to unify and streamline the collective bargaining process, to mount an aggressive, vigilant defense of your contractual and legal rights and to try to make AGMA relevant in your day to day working lives.
To assure that AGMA members receive the best possible local and national representation, I will, obviously, need your help.
Most significant among what I understand to be the union’s priorities is the need for an aggressive defense of member’s contractual and legal rights. To the extent that employers have been able to violate the contractual benefits secured by our negotiators, they now must recognize that the cost of violating an AGMA agreement will be a promptly-filed AGMA grievance, vigorously pursued by a staff of sophisticated labor relations professionals, followed by the certainty of litigation to protect those rights.
Next, the industry needs to understand that employers can no longer cavalierly ignore the legal rights guaranteed to every AGMA member the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964…the right to have a workplace free of illegal discrimination, offensive harassment and inequality of employment opportunity. We are already working on a system of rights enforcement that will let any AGMA member, anywhere in the United States, pursue without cost, the belief that he or she has been the victim of illegal workplace discrimination.
The operational changes we need to make will, in turn, necessitate a restructuring of the way in which grievances and other allegations of contractual violations are received by local representatives, transmitted to AGMA’s National Office, and investigated, litigated and resolved. Hand in glove with that, we need to improve the ways in which members are kept aware of the on-going processing of their requests for assistance. Many of the internal staff changes necessary to effectuate these goals are already underway.
My next priority would be the implementation of a more unified, nationalized approach to collective bargaining and the administration of AGMA’s collective bargaining agreements, so that members in geographically diverse areas can have the benefit of AGMA’s collective national expertise. Although apparently troubling to some members who might prefer to select their own negotiators, as AGMA’s new National Executive Director, it is my responsibility to determine which AGMA employees should conduct which negotiations on AGMA’s behalf. While some may initially disagree, this appears to be the best overall approach and it is unquestionably in AGMA’s best interests to negotiate contracts in this manner. Internally, in the short time I’ve been here I’ve already found that many members of our present staff are dedicated unionists who work hard to achieve your goals. I fully hope that, within the relatively immediate future, you will see our staff bolstered by the addition of several new, skilled labor professionals. The staff will be guided by the notion that they are your fiduciaries and must carry out the day-to-day business of the union in a businesslike, decorous, member-friendly manner. Externally, I hope to quickly expand the level of services provided by local area representatives and, where appropriate, to provide such representation on a full-time basis.
All AGMA employees know, and remain aware, that the funds with which to run the union and pay our salaries, come out of the pockets of the membership. In turn, the membership has every right to expect…and insist upon…the highest level of service and the staff’s dedication to the advancement and protection of the interests of the membership.
I also recognize the essential need to improve communications with and among the elected leadership, to continue to involve more members in AGMA’s governance and to make AGMA’s internal office operations more efficient and effective.
Finally, if AGMA is going to fulfill the purposes for which it was founded, it will need to expand its membership base, primarily through internal education and external organizing. It will need to improve its reputation among its own members and among the employers of its members. Towards that end, I will continuously call upon the Board of Governors, AGMA committees and you, AGMA’s membership, to consider, discuss and debate a variety of policy options designed to bring AGMA into the real world of a bottom-line oriented economy. To the extent that these changes upset traditional patterns of representation, members should keep in mind that their continuing participation in this process will assure…it is, of course, the only way to assure…that AGMA’s tradition of participatory union democracy continues to flourish even as the union moves toward greater efficiency.
The definition of the word “union” that I think best describes an effective labor union deals with the quality of members functioning as individuals within an indivisible organization. But that quality is also a standard toward which members must strive. When a member seeks to advance the parochial interests of one category or geographic region over those of the union as a whole, it undermines the essence of unionism and damages us all.
It has been my privilege to have spend most of my professional life as an advocate for the rights of the men and women who create America’s artistic heritage. At AGMA, it is my hope and expectation that you will allow me to continue that advocacy on your behalf. I have the help and support of your extraordinary dedicated President and her team of elected leaders. Interim NES Tim Fitzgerald has agreed to stay on as a consultant to help me achieve these goals and I can continue to call upon our exceptional outside council, Bruce Simon and Barbara Hillman. But most of all, I need and actively solicit your input and your help. I am available to any AGMA member at the office (800-543-2462) and by e-mail (AGMANY@aol.Com). Please share with me your thoughts, hopes, and concerns about AGMA’s operations, its priorities and its future.
Thank you.
