This coversation started in another thread so I thought it would be fun to reminisce about our Musician Union experiences. My whole band joined when we were all 16/17. What a big deal ,we're in the Musicians union ! Paid our dues even though we were hardly making any money. Heard tjhe stories of them checking bands at gigs and causing trouble so we stayed on. Kept my membersihip and years later I'm playing in another band and we get stiffed with a bad check. Call the Union Sec. (who BTW was good friends with my father) and his answer " You have to go to the local where it happened". Paid my dues a bunch of years and they never did a thing for us and we also never got any work from them.
So again a few years later I'm a teacher and we have a school Assembly. It was a few of these old Union Guys. Accordion ( the guy who wouldn't help us ) President of the Union who was a drummer just banging a tambourine and one or two other guys. Played a bunch of old time stuff, I do remember Hello Dolly, and the kids hated it. I just laughed because they were getting paid out of the members dues money.