Keeping the Family Together

January 27, 2021

I wanted to take a moment to recognize and thank you for the solidarity and sense of community that WILL get us through these tough times. While we are at the BEGINNING of turning things around, we are also experiencing peak COVID infection rates during this “worse before it gets better” period. And when our members have taken the biggest economic hits in decades, I have seen many of you answer the call by not only paying your own annual dues this month, but by helping out other members with their dues. Tough times can bring out the best in people, and so many of you have certainly not disappointed.

So this occasion brings me to express a unique gratitude for this. I can assure you we are doing the best we can to keep the lights on around here, getting the work done for our various contracts, and mustering every bit of support we can for our musicians. We have pulled together well over $100K to provide economic relief payments to musicians through the DFW Musicians COVID Relief Fund and have put together a series of over sixty live streamed gigs for our bands so far – with MPTF funding – and are still growing that initiative. It is our focus to get work, pay and support to our members — and keeping us together. Our mindset among the Officers and Executive Board of Local 72-147 is to do all we can for our musicians, and to hold the “family” together — as one of our board members put it.

So as we accept your dues payments this month, so we can pay our bills and do our work, we also recognize that you may not be able to pay. We are doing all we can to work with each and everyone on this issue – to make it as easy as possible for you to keep your membership going. And if you cannot pay, or need time, please let me know (swilliams@musiciansdfw.org).

It’s family first, really.