Author: Aaron Pino

Our Union Sticking Together in the Pandemic: The Local Needs Your Support. Pay Dues if you Can — Call us

I want to write to you today about one of the benefits of your membership in our Local – the $2000 Death Benefit. We are one of the last of the AFM Locals that are still maintaining this type of benefit for our members. If you are still a member in good standing at the time of your death, all your beneficiary needs to do is provide us with an original of the death certificate, and we will take care of the rest. We have a Death Benefit Fund set up in our own Musicians Federal Credit Union to which we contribute periodically from the General Fund, so it is a self-funded benefit, not connected with any insurance company.

I wanted to write a quick note about membership dues. Recently the International Executive Board of the AFM released some Emergency Pandemic Policy Recommendations, a few of which your Executive Board adopted on April 9th.

As of that date, we will be waiving all late fees for currently unpaid 2020 dues.

Every year we have several requests from members who work freelance for help concerning a problem with a job. Usually, they either haven’t been paid at all, or were paid too little. Sometimes it involves working conditions. Unfortunately, usually the person(s) requesting assistance did not use a union contract on the gig. Sometimes we are able to help them get a satisfactory outcome anyway, but if you are working without a signed contract, you are at risk of losing your pay, as there is little the local or the AFM can do legally without an agreement.