Organizing in 2023 was a varied, multi-faceted endeavor. As most members know, our department functions on multiple levels: internally, externally, and through general community outreach to build relationships within musician communities beyond the historical AFM reach. The practice of these organizing visions is vital to our union democracy and strength.

On the internal organizing side, the job is to work with existing members and committees on building their ownership of and further involvement in Local 802, whereas external organizing is all about growing the union by bringing in new members. Though the latter can be arduous, especially with indie artists, the mission has been consistent.

Organizer Cheryl Brandon and I have focused for months on outreach to area HOTEL MUSICIANS. As Recording Vice President Harvey Mars has reported, we’ve initially been visiting hotels that 802 has had contracts with, in some cases over generations, but we’ve also moved beyond the signatories on the outdated “Hotelman’s” collective bargaining agreement (CBA). Happily, our city has come back following the desert extremes of covid, and we’ve observed increasing numbers of establishments seeking to re-establish the wonderful heritage of hotel music. While many genres of music are heard in these spaces, jazz has a brilliant history of lighting up NYC hotels and we are always pleased to see members of the broader jazz community back at work!

We’ve re-established ties and successfully re-negotiated CBAs with certain hotels. We’re building committees in others, preparing for exciting new opportunities for union gigs in these bars and lobbies. And we will continue to move this campaign up through and beyond midtown. If you have a regular or semi-regular gig at a hotel, please be in touch with me so that we can set up time to privately talk. Everyone deserves a fair, secure deal with pension and healthcare contributions.

Check out this brochure that we are giving out to hotel managers to convince them to bring back more live hotel music!

Some contracts like 54 Below are in the early stages or part of much-needed renegotiations.  Organizing has been working with Principal Business Representative Pete Voccola in making regular visits to the club, creating good contacts with the wider group of musicians there for about a year, and the process has borne fruit. We’ve established a committee consisting of veterans of 54B as well as newer musicians there and are now seeking, with VP Harvey Mars, to begin negotiations with management as soon as possible.

Our department has also engaged in discussion with any number of members and others who reach out about their gigs, and these possibilities are in the earliest stage when details must remain confidential. Further, I’ve been assigned to also do research on several other playing opportunities that have eluded an 802 CBA for far too long. We are more than hopeful to turn that around. More news on these as things develop! We are always following up discreetly on tips shared by musicians. Use www.local802afm.org/hotline to reach us.

ON THE INTERNAL ORGANIZING SIDE, our department facilitated a year of highly successful 802 Jazz Nights which we are excited to report will extend through 2024. In fact, we’ve branched out these monthly concerts with featured bands and covered them under a union CBA. Throughout the year, there’s been a Latin jazz night (with Carlos Jimenez), electro-acoustic fusion (Ronnie Burrage & Holographic Principle), and various shades of expansive sounds (George Brandon’s Blue Unity, Gene Pritsker’s Sound Liberation, and Dick Griffin’s orchestra, among them) as well as sets of gripping modern jazz (Akua Dixon’s Trio, Bertha Hope’s Quintet, Gene Perla Trio). And this month, the show will be dubbed “802 Blues Night” with the Gordon Lockwood duet out front.

We’ve also been collaborating with the DECIBAL Collective founded by members of the 802 Executive Board and an array of diverse, activist musicians. Both 802 and DECIBAL presented the Special Audiences and Musicians Sextet as an 802 Jazz Night, and then a Juneteenth Commemoration featuring Gwen Laster’s trio and poet Ngoma Hill. There’s more to come on this front: we’ve secured monster bassist Bakithi Kumalo (of Paul Simon’s Graceland fame) and his Capetown Trio for a special African American History Month event. On the horizon are special events for LGBTQ Pride and more.

Together with Local 802 and AFM leadership and the DECIBAL Collective, we partnered with the Workers United Film Festival to present a screening of Girls in the Band, a singularly compelling documentary on women musicians within jazz over the course of a century. As an associate of the festival from years back, I was personally very pleased to have helped finalize this important cultural work connection.

AND we are more than happy to include word on our still new but expanding role in working with the hip hop community. On November 4, Local 802’s organizing team joined Grandmaster Caz at the Actors Temple for a celebration uniting hip hop, R&B and jazz that was produced by 802 and Actors’ Equity member King Melvin Brown. We look forward to building bridges and meeting with more hip-hop artists through 2024.

Gwen Laster and Harvey Mars at a celebration of hip-hop

LASTLY, Organizing has happily been outdoors this year, contributing to the street-heat. Of course, there was the annual Labor Day Parade (seriously, the best in a long time). And we were there for the many rallies and pickets of the DCI and New York City Ballet Orchestra, then for the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA strikes in lockstep with the Central Labor Council and other union siblings. These were not only strong, bold pickets, but deeply empowering statements of solidarity. And by the time 802 was out front of Lincoln Center on behalf of the NYC Ballet Orchestra, our crowd was huge and enlivened with comrades from many other unions. The Organizing Department was there to greet folks, assist the hired bands, do crowd control, hand out placards, and encourage loud participation. Happily, the fight for a fair contract in each case has been successful.

Finally, we are happy to announce that the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers performance at Radio City Music Hall will be performed by Orchestra St. Luke’s at Local 802 single engagement rates. Remember, anytime you’re called to play a job at Radio City, or any major venue, please contact us to make sure you’re earning the proper scale and benefits that you deserve. You can always report those engagements to the Local 802 Hotline at www.local802afm.org/hotline.

Currently, we are preparing our forces for contract fights to come: the national AFM negotiations with the AMPTP is scheduled for later this month, and then soon enough 802 will commence bargaining with the Broadway League once again. The struggle continues, sisters, brothers, and all others, but the battle will always be in the face of solidarity. An injury to one, we must always recall, is indeed an injury to all.

Here’s to a very happy, healthy, and artful 2024.