The American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada (AFM) is a 501(c)(5)"Form 990: Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax". American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada. Guidestar. December 31, 2015. labor union representing professional musicians in the United States and Canada. It negotiates fair agreements, protects ownership of recorded music, secures benefits such as healthcare and pension, and lobbies legislators. In Canada, the AFM is known as the Canadian Federation of Musicians/Fédération Canadienne des Musiciens (CFM/FCM). The organization publishes the monthly journal International Musician.
The AFM is affiliated with AFL-CIO (the largest federation of unions in the United States); the Department of Professional Employees; and the Canadian Labour Congress, the federation of unions in Canada.
The AFM has 162 affiliated locals across the United States and Canada that are organized into 11 geographic conferences: Canadian, Eastern, Illinois State, Mid-America, Mid-States, New England, New Jersey, California, Texas, Southern, and Western.
Six player conferences—International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians (ICSOM), Organization of Canadian Symphony Musicians (OCSOM), Regional Orchestra Players Association (ROPA), Recording Musicians Association (RMA), Theater Musicians Association (TMA), and Freelance Musicians Association (FMA) -- give voice to musicians in various industry sectors.
Allied Organizations The AFM maintains close ties with other arts and entertainment unions and trade organizations in the US, Canada, and around the world. These alliances allow for additional support and solidarity during contract negotiations. Among its union allies in North America are the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), Teamsters, Writers Guild of America (WGA), Directors Guild of America (DGA), Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and more.
Through solidarity with other unions representing workers in the film and television industry, the AFM was able to win progressive Basic Theatrical Motion Picture and Basic Television Motion Picture contracts with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) in spring 2024. The AFM’s negotiations began shortly after resolution of the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes that interrupted film and television production. The AFM was a strong supporter of WGA, SAG-AFTRA, and other trade unions during their negotiations with AMPTP.
The AFM maintains close ties to international musician unions through its membership in the International Federation of Musicians (FIM). Current AFM president Tino Gagliardi serves as a vice president on the FIM Presidium. The AFM maintains a close ties with the Musicians’ Union in the United Kingdom.
The AFM is a member of the National Music Council of the United States and the musicFIRST Coalition.
History The roots of the musicians’ collective action began with the New York City-based Musical Mutual Protective Union in 1863, which took the first steps toward creating uniform scales for different types of musical employment in 1878. By March 1886, delegates from 15 different protective unions across the US came together to form the National League of Musicians to discuss and rectify common issues, such as competition from traveling musicians.
The American Federation of Labor recognized the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) in 1896. A group of delegates had broken away from the National League of Musicians in order to form a more egalitarian organization. Seeking to give meaning to the phrase "In unity there is strength", the first standing resolution of the AFM was: "That any musician who receives pay for his musical services, shall be considered a professional musician." However, the union was racially segregated.
The first convention, upon which the American Federation of Musicians was founded, was held October 1896 at the Hotel English in Indianapolis, Indiana. The group had 3,000 members and Owen Miller became the first AFM president. In 1896, Miller said: "The only object of AFM is to bring order out of chaos and to harmonize and bring together all the professional musicians of the country into one progressive body."
At the same time, the trade-union movement was taking hold throughout North America. Unions representing all types of laborers were forming to exercise collective strength to raise wages, improve working conditions and secure greater dignity and respect for working people. In 1887, the AFL and the Knights of Labor first invited the National League of Musicians to affiliate with the trade-union movement, but the offers produced deep divisions within the National League of Musicians. Some members objected to musicians being called laborers, insisting instead that they were "artists and professionals." As the American music scene prospered and more symphony orchestras were founded, the need for a national organization for musicians increased.
In 1897, the union became international when the Montreal Musicians Protective Union and Toronto Orchestral Association joined.
1900s expansion By 1900, the union changed its name to the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada and was actively organizing on both sides of the border. In 1902, the first Black local, Local 288, was chartered in Chicago.
A 1903 resolution was passed prohibiting foreign bands taking work from domestic bands. It was followed by a 1905 letter from the AFM petitioning president Theodore Roosevelt to protect American musicians by limiting the importation of musicians from outside Canada and the US.
By 1905, an official position on the International Executive Board was created to provide Canadian representation at the federation level, and second Black local Pittsburgh's Local 471, was chartered. Early accomplishments of the union included setting the first scales for orchestras traveling with comic operas, musical comedies and grand opera. Among the pressing issues was competition from both foreign musicians and off-duty military musicians.
In its first 10 years, the AFM had organized 424 locals and 45,000 musicians in the US and Canada. Virtually all instrumental musicians in the US were union members. In 1906, the 10-year-old organization made a donation of $1,000 to earthquake victims in San Francisco.
A 1908 appropriations bill banned armed-services musicians (exempting Marines) from competing with civilians. In 1916, Congress passed a law prohibiting all armed-services members from competing with civilians.
Cleveland's Black Local 550 was founded in 1910, Columbus' Black Local 589 in 1913, Springfield, Illinois' Black Local 675 in 1914, Boston's Black Local 535 in 1915, and Parkersburg, West Virginia's Black Local 185 in 1916.
During the World War I era, general unemployment affected musicians. Silent films displaced some forms of traditional entertainment, and with a declining economy and other factors, many musicians were laid off.
In 1918, Seattle's Local 458 was founded for the city's non-white musicians who were excluded from Seattle's white Local 76. In 1924 it was renamed Local 493. 493 mostly had Black musicians, but also included Mexicans, Hawaiians, Filipinos, and some white musicians. The local helped Black workers get jobs at music halls that Local 76 tried to keep white-only, and also created the Blue Note Clubhouse for jazz musicians.
By the 1940s, there were thirty-eight Black locals. In cities without a Black local, non-white musicians had been segregated in "subsidiary locals", and had no voting rights, until 1944 when they were abolished. Seattle's 493 and 76 locals merged in 1956 to try to decrease racial tensions over jobs.
Among the best known AFM actions was the 1942–44 musicians' strike, orchestrated to pressure record companies to agree to a better arrangement for paying royalties.
Technology and legislation
In 1918, two important legislative measures, Prohibition and a 20 percent cabaret tax to support the war effort, negatively impacted many musicians. Prohibition ended after 13 years, but the cabaret tax took its toll on the music industry for many years to come.
The Copyright Act of 1909 created the first compulsory mechanical license stipulating royalty payments be paid by the user of a composer's work, but the law excluded musicians.
In the 1920s, new technologies challenged live music for the first time. The advent of recording and radio forever changed the landscape of musician employment. At AFM conventions, the union decried the use of canned music and forbid orchestra leaders from advertising their orchestras free of charge on radio. By the end of the 1920s, many factors had reduced the number of recording companies. As the nation recovered from World War I, technology advanced and there was diversity in recording and producing music. In 1927, the first "talkie" motion picture was released and within two years, 20,000 musicians lost their jobs performing in theater pits for silent films. Minimum wage scales were created for vitaphone, movietone and phonograph recording work. In 1938, film companies signed their first contract with AFM at a time when musicians were losing income as phonograph records replaced radio orchestras and jukeboxes competed with live music in nightclubs.
The AFM founded the Music Defense League in 1930 to gain public support against canned music in movie theaters.
The AFM set higher scales for the recording work than for live work, negotiating the first industry-wide agreements in the labor movement. While musicians flocked to Los Angeles hoping for high-paying recording work, fewer than 200 new jobs were created by the technology.
To help musicians find fair pay and union jobs, the AFM created a booking-agent licensing policy in 1936, and in 1938, developed a similar program for licensing record companies.
While national scales were set for live musicians working on fledgling radio networks, some stations had already begun using recordings. The 1937 AFM convention mandated Weber to fight against the use of recorded music on radio. He called a meeting with representatives of radio, transcription and record companies, threatening to halt all recording work nationwide. After 14 weeks, the stations agreed to spend an additional $2 million to employ staff musicians, but the Department of Justice later ruled the agreement illegal.
Petrillo strikes Labor leader James Petrillo took command of the AFM in 1940. He took a stronger stance, challenging technological unemployment. Among the most significant AFM actions was the 1942–44 musicians' strike (sometimes called the "Petrillo ban"), orchestrated to pressure record companies to agree to a royalty system more beneficial to the musicians. The strike forced the recording industry to establish a royalty on recording sales to employ musicians at live performances. This resulted in the Music Performance Trust Fund (MPTF), which was established in 1948 and continues to sponsor free live performances throughout the US and Canada. When the MPTF began disbursals, it became the largest single employer of live musicians in the world.
Petrillo organized a second recording ban from January 1 to December 14, 1948, in response to the Taft–Hartley Act.
In the 1950s, the MPTF was reapportioned to form the AFM Pension Fund and the Sound Recording Special Payment Fund.
Numerous labor actions in the following decades improved industry standards and working conditions for musicians. New agreements covered TV programs, cable TV, independent films and video games. Pension funds were established and musicians also secured groundbreaking contracts providing royalties for digital transmissions and from recordings of live performances.