Busy Summer! And More to Come...

It has been one busy summer for us at Local 72-147. For starters, the 103rd AFM Convention convened in June taking our four delegates to Ottawa, Canada to elect international officers and help chart the future for our union. For a brief report on election results and some of the most significant legislation, please click HERE.

Not long after the returning home from Ottawa, Local 72-147 hosted conferences of the Theatre Musicians Association and the Regional Orchestra Players Association, which both took place at the Hilton Garden Inn Downtown Dallas. It was particularly rewarding to host musicians, AFM staff and dignitaries to work together on forwarding our professions in its various sectors. We were also successful at showing our colleagues our first-rate musical establishment here in North Texas. I thank our members of the DFW TMA Chapter and musicians of the Dallas Opera Orchestra and the East Texas Symphony Orchestra for volunteering their time and efforts making these conferences successful. More about the conferences HERE.

We have also been involved in negotiations with the Wichita Falls Symphony, the Waco Symphony and for theater musicians working in Dallas Theater Center and Casa Manana. The demonstration of unity in action at both players conferences we hosted were important in our own organizing for orchestra and theater musicians. More about all that coming soon!

We are also busy getting ready for MPTF performance projects. September will be coming alive with MPTF sponsored performances, starting with the Denton Arts & Jazz Festival on September 11-13. We have plans for taking our part in these projects much further, as we bring our community together around our own music making. Again, you will be hearing much more soon.

For now, I wanted to mention an important takeaway from the Convention: in order to be relevant, we as a union must prioritize our time and resources to grow, not only in numbers but in our actions. This was a theme of the convention, and a subject of serious debate. As a result, the AFM has committed to developing additional staff and resources for us to build those areas where we are weakest. Here at Local 72-147 we are already working with new federation staff to make that happen.

At the convention I served on the Joint Law and Finance Committee where much of these issues were deliberated upon. Brad Eggen, President of the Twin Cities Musicians Union, Local 30-73 and Chair of the Finance Committee at the convention has granted permission for the the reprinting of his Convention Report, which was previously printed in Local 30-73’s July-September issue of DUET, the local’s official quarterly publication. As the Chair of the Convention’s Finance Committee and through his work on the Joint Law and Finance Committee at the 2026 AFM Convention, he shares a key perspective — and an inside view — of the important work done this summer.

AFM Convention: Democracy for the Future

by Brad C. Eggen

reprinted with permission from DUET, July-August-September 2026, VOLUME 44, NUMBER 3

When over 70 people appeared to testify on one Bylaw recommendation before the Joint Law and Finance Committee, I realized we were in for an unusually exhausting Convention process. The core of the debate was the future course of the AFM in the midst of contentious technology issues and pervasive stresses in the music industry.

That first committee session sought delegate views from all over the Federation regarding the International Executive Board’s organizing recommendations to set financial and operational criteria for local involvement in the process. The IEB recommendations saw as a primary purpose “the task of recruiting and organizing,” both on the AFM level and through “Local cooperation and participation.” The AFM goal is to deploy a unified Feder­ation-wide master organizing plan, in coordination with the Organizing Services Department and administered regional­ly with local union participation. The IEB designed this ap­proach to emphasize industry sectors with the least union density currently -local freelance/gigging/indie, electronic media, and theatrical and non-theatrical touring. As vested partners in this process, the locals were designated specific responsibilities including updated websites, access to popular social media platforms, and a thorough membership database.

The Joint Law and Finance Committee began by requesting lengthy explanations from various AFM specialty departments concerning their current status and limitations. We recognized that the AFM was committed to reach out to those segments of our membership music industry which have been less exposed to day-to-day bargaining and guidance by Local administra­tions or the AFM. Before these proposals were reported to the Convention floor, the Joint Law and Finance Committee reviewed these concepts thoroughly. The Joint Law and Finance Committee then revamped, redesigned, edited and augmented the IEB proposals, including a significant compromise of the financial obligations of AFM members and their Local chapters. The Convention floor then took the better part of a day to scrutinize the appropriate course to be followed, resulting in a gradual per capita dues increase over the course of three years and a detailed agenda calling for extensive teamwork between the Locals and the skilled Federation specialists in each area.

It is the expectation of this writer that the freelance and theater industry in our com­munity will be better served through this Federation initiative, with greater levels of organization, new local members, stronger electronic communications and use of infor­mation, and consequently more work with carefully crafted benefits and representation.

A major stepping stone in this process is the establishment of an AFM Task Force on Data Management Moderniza­tion to include representatives from the national office, Lo­cal leadership, and individuals with expertise in information technology, cybersecurity, data management and systems implementation. The “Technology and Software Review Task Force” must be established before the end of this calendar year and is obligated to report its progress in International Musician witl1 the IEB required to implement the appropriate next steps in consultation with the Locals and future Con­ventions. Another example of the Convention’s product is the establishment of a Public Awareness of Theater Musicians program to be designed by the IEB.

Multiple other concepts were explored at the Convention through 5 Recommendations and 42 Resolutions considered by the delegates. Many new officers were elected to the IEB. Be assured that the next three years will involve an aggressive outreach to the less served members of our music population.

You are the Union!