HOW THIS ELECTION WILL AFFECT OUR LIVES

On these pages you will find a comparison of Vice-President Gore’s and Governor Bush’s positions on a variety of issues important to the labor movement. Please read this information carefully and then be sure to vote on Nov. 7.

Despite all that you may read to the contrary, it does make a difference who is elected. Federal judgeships and administrative appointments in the Executive branch affect all of our daily lives more than can be imagined. The Clinton appointees have been superior in all respects to those of Reagan and Bush (senior), and there is every reason to believe that this would continue under Gore. Bush has expressed great admiration for the judicial philosophies of Supreme Court Justices Scalia and Thomas, and has indicated that any appointments he fill would follow that pattern. That fact, and the prospect of a Bush-appointed National Labor Relations Board, should send shivers up and down our collective spines.

The AFM International Executive Board, at its September meeting, endorsed the Gore-Leiberman ticket. Local 802 enthusiastically supports this endorsement and has, in addition, voted to endorse the candidacy of Hillary Rodman Clinton for U.S. Senate. She is by far the superior candidate and has repeatedly expressed her interest in working with the labor movement to further the legislative and social agenda of working people. An article on the AFM’s endorsement appears below, along with a list of all the candidates the local has endorsed.

ORGANIZING IN THE RECORDING FIELD

In my last report I wrote of my concerns with regard to recording work done without benefit of union contract, and identified this problem as one primarily of organizing. Local 802 has now initiated the first steps of a campaign to address these issues.

Within the few weeks prior to the publication of this issue of Allegro, phone calls to several hundred recording musicians were made by the New Organizing and Recording Business Rep departments. These were essentially informational in nature, serving to notify the affected members that such a plan was under way.

This was to be followed by a meeting – on Oct. 23 – with many of the busiest recording member/contractors in town, outlining for them the nature of our efforts. AFM President Steve Young, AFM Electronic Media Services Division Director Carol Sato and AFM legal counsel and chief labor negotiator George Cohen had also been invited and were expected to attend.

This will be a complex and difficult project. If we are to be successful we will need the full cooperation of the membership. We hope and expect to get it.