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.

I mentioned my feelings toward them under the other thread, but I have to tell this story.
When I first moved to this area I had a one-year contract with a club owner. Business was great and everybody liked me. He told me I had to join the union, and I had dropped my membership in Oklahoma, so I rejoined. I had been living in Arkansas and they didn't know a Union from an outhouse.
My contract called for an increase after three months. At the end of three months the owner told me he was going to replace me. I asked him why, and he said there was a blind guy and his wife he wanted to hire and he could get them both for less than he would have to start paying me, and that he thought people would feel sorry for the blind guy.
I told him we had a contract, and he said, well then take it to the Union. I called them the next day and they told me the owner had filed a grievance saying I was habitually late for work, stayed drunk and used drugs.
I told them my next call was to my attorney unless I got a written apology from him before the day was over. I told them to please advise the owner that his SON was in charge of all the drugs in that area and that the newspaper would have proof of that by the end of the week.
I did get the written apology and admission that the whole thing was made up. Anyway a friend told me that a band needed an organ player for that weekend--a one night thing and I agreed to do it, and did, and made $50.
Next came a hearing before the Union board. The owner went in first and I wasn't allowed to hear what he told them. I could hear them laughing through the door though. Then I was called in and they told me they had ruled in my favor and that I would be paid for the length of time I was off work, which was three days, since I took that job for one night!!!
I asked what about the remaining nine months on my contract and they said they would not be able to enforce that. See the "good old boy" thing at work? It was back at the end of the infamous "Bossier Strip" where there was virtually no laws and no rules except those that could be physically enforced. And they had enforcers back then.
Well I should have quit the Union right then, but they still had a little power. It didn't take me too long to find another sit-down job, and I paid work dues for the next year. Being a one-man band, I had to pay as "band leader", which was a little more.
After that job ended, I was offered another one at a club where the owner played and sang and had a guy backing him on various instruments. They wanted me to make it a three-man deal.
Well the owner was in the Union, but the other guy was not. The union told me I could not play with the other guy because he wasn't a member. I asked them what about the owner? He was playing with him. They said there was an exception and that as club owner he could hire non-union players if he wanted. In other words, he could play with the guy, or he could play with me, but I couldn't play with the other guy!!
O.K. It was time to tell them exactly where to stick their Union, "enforcers" and all.
They told me I would never work in the area again. That was 35 years ago and I've never been without a job more than a week or so.
Now I admit the guys that ran the union then are now dead and gone. I know the new President well and we get along fine, but I STILL AIN'T JOINING NO STINKIN' UNION!

I've had nothing but bad experiences, and that's why I WILL never be part of any union again. My first brush was with the UAW, and that was my last. The jobs I lost to union players wee very few, and in the long run - I know I made the right decision. Maybe back in Norma Ray's day they were a necessity, but they have morphed into a corrupt, mismanaged organization that I want no part of. Do you think the "union" is helping anyone get by thru Covid days? Don't think so. Don't really know., Don't care. Rant over.

https://www.afm.org/covid-19/#get

https://aflcio.org/covid-19

Jerryghr

Good info Jerry. Glad they're active helping artists.
As a teacher I "HAD" to belong to the Union and it was all we had to protect us lowly teachers. The Nepotism and Cronyism in the school system were just as bad as the Political system. They only sold us out on one contract in my 35 years ! But the Teachers Union was more needed than not.
Music is corrupt rip off business all the way to the top so the AFM can be helpful. But not on my (our) level.
All said Unions throughout history are a two edged sword.

+1

I don't have too much "good" to say about the unions either. First got involved in my late teens when I was told "join or you will not get a paying gig anywhere within 200 miles of this town". So I joined. Then I learned how it worked.... union "good old boys" got paid from our dues to play their home organs once or twice a week in their backyards. And every year, the same 3 "leaders" put their cars and families on the autotrain for an all expenses paid trip for a week in FL. Oh the good old days... hmmmm.

When I first started to play in bands, I joined the Trenton, NJ Musician's Union, and also because I worked in sales and teaching at an established Hammond dealer.(politics) It was useless ..I could see it as a benefit for horn players or string players, but not for a keyboard player (work was plentiful and you did not have to be union).

The best story I have to tell...In my early construction business, I sub contracted from a local contractor (friend)..He was a no nonsense Italian fella

Frank was doing a hot roof in Philly, and I was doing some aluminum work for him..
A union guy climbed up a 40 foot ladder to confront Frank. This guy was a typical enforcer.. When the guy neared close to the top of the ladder, Frank pushed the ladder out with the guy in panic. He gave him the choice to climb down the ladder and don't come back, or he was going to dump his butt

The irony of the story, 20 years later, Frank fell from a ladder, and it led to his death..

Bill's statement above sums up the whole musician/union situation PERFECTLY. The union will serve the members of the Philadelphia orchestra as well as the members of The Tonight Show's band but for the average weekend warrior or even the full-time restaurant/bar/hotel lobby player, it is nothing more than a (barely legal) tax authority. During my playing time in the Philly area, the union rep was the closest thing I ever knew to a real-life mobster. And yes, there are some 'good' unions (Teachers union, Nurses union, etc.) so just as Bill said, it can be a two-edged sword.

chas