Monday, August 18, 2003

Local 4 Board OKs conflict of interest

Hey, Local Officers!

Do your Local bylaws say that an Officer may not play gigs? Does that AFM bylaw about not contracting get in the way of your career as an employer representative?

Want to play or contract anyway?

Why not have your Executive Board waive that pesky Local bylaw just for you?

(You can ignore the AFM bylaw on your own. The Federation won't hassle you.)

Sound good? Want more information? Great! Here's someone who can help you:

His name is Leonard Di Cosimo.

He's the Secretary-Treasurer of Local 4 in Cleveland. He's an all around kind of talented guy: plays bass (acoustic and electric), conducts, sings AND composes! (At least he's listed in the AFM database under all those classifications.)

Some of you may have met Di Cosimo when he was campaigning for International Executive Board this year.

Leonard has recently performed as a singer around town. When questioned about his professional activities in light of the Local's bylaw that prohibits full time officers from accepting engagements, Di Cosimo told other Board members that he wasn't PLAYING, he was working as a VOCALIST, so no bylaw was violated (he said).

Well THAT makes a lot of sense.

Conducting isn't "playing," either, but Di Cosimo recently decided to play it safe, given the flack some Board members gave him over the singing engagements.

He asked the Board to exempt him from the previously mentioned Local 4 bylaw that prohibits the President or the Secretary-Treasurer from performing, so that he could work as music director for a production of Bat Boy at Cleveland Heights' Cain Park.

Musicals at Cain Park have traditionally not utilized union players nor have they paid union scale.

An unconfirmed report suggests Di Cosimo may have donated his pay for the production in order to hire union musicians. UnionMuse has not yet verified this claim. (It is, of course, illegal to use union membership status as a condition of employment in the United States, but that's another matter. Perhaps what the report actually meant was that he wanted the gig to pay union scale. But perhaps none of this is true, and he just collected his salary.)

The Board voted to ok the bylaw exemption for Di Cosimo for this engagement (the run ended last weekend).

Whatever one thinks of prohibiting an Officer from playing professionally, is it the business of a Local's Executive Board to waive member-ratified bylaws? Is the waiver in question LEGAL (either in an AFM Bylaw sense or a Federal Law sense)? Do the bylaws permit the Executive Board to change the bylaws without a referendum?

Of course, there's more:

According to one of our correspondents, and confirmed by Cain Park management, music directors of Cain Park events also contract the musicians for those events.

Hmmm...

No Local Officer shall serve in the position of a Personnel Manager for an employer of musicians in the Local’s jurisdiction. Beginning with a Local’s next election on or after August 1, 2001, no Local Officer, except in Canada, shall serve in the position of a contractor of musicians in the musical theater field.

AFM Bylaws, Article 5, Section 7(d). Article/section numbering taken from 2001 edition (2003 bylaws have not yet been published, but this publication has received no reports that the substance of this bylaw has been changed.)

Who waived THAT one?

While we're on the subject, at least one other Officer of the Cleveland Local is active as an employer (or employer representative--that IS, after all, what a contractor/personnel manager is). That Officer has hired musicians for the Lakewood Band in the past and is assistant contractor for the Cleveland Playhouse. In the case of the Playhouse, she has also served on the Orchestra/Negotiating Committee. Whether she will participate in the upcoming negotiations as a player representative remains to be seen. A source reports that she also assists the contractor of the Cleveland Lyric Opera. That report says that the officer/contractor sits on that orchestra's negotiating committee as well, for which position, according to our correspondent, she was chosen by Local 4 President Don Santa-Emma.

See above referenced AFM Bylaw, as well as this one:

Members of a Local who are contractors, personnel managers or who perform other supervisory duties for an employer with whom the Local has a CBA shall not be eligible to serve on the negotiation and/or grievance- arbitration committee. In addition, they shall not be permitted to participate in any membership meeting or portion of a meeting in which collective bargaining negotiations or contract administration issues are discussed, notwithstanding the fact that they may also perform musical services for the employer and may be a member of the affected bargaining unit. However, the members shall be permitted to participate in any contract ratification vote, as long as they are otherwise eligible.

(Article 26, Section 17)

Those fun loving Local 4 Officers!

Either conflict-of-interest is not in their vocabulary, or they voted to waive that concept, too.

It certainly sounds like business as usual, as practiced in many Locals of the American Federation of Musicians where fair representation has yet to be attempted.