FAIRNESS. DIGNITY. RESPECT. NOW’S THE TIME!
Join us on Wednesday, May 1st as Local 802 joins many other labor unions and activist groups to celebrate May Day!
We will be there to bring some music to the event, and also to bring our message that musicians are workers too, and we deserve fair pay and retirement benefits!
Text by Dawoud Kringle
On the night of Thursday, April 11, 2013, Justice for Jazz Artists held a demonstration and rally to begin its Jazz Built This! protest against jazz club owners who refuse to make modest pension contributions on behalf of the musicians who play in their clubs and make these club owners rich.
New York City is a Mecca for the best jazz musicians in the world. It was here that jazz became one of America’s greatest artistic and musical achievements. At the same time, many older musicians have little economic security and often retire in poverty. Broadway and symphony orchestras are protected by union contracts; jazz musicians are not. To add insult to injury, owners of prestigious and expensive jazz clubs (such as the Blue Note, Birdland, Jazz Standard, Village Vanguard and Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola) have prospered from the musicians who play in those clubs; while the musicians are not guaranteed minimum pay standards or benefits. Many of these clubs record the musicians with no remuneration (Some clubs have argued that players have de facto agreed to the clubs’ recording and use of their work simply by agreeing to play there; which is absurd. Under any basic union contract, musicians would receive compensation for work they create. Club owners already make ample profit from the live performance, and do not have the right to perpetually profit from the product that musicians create simply because the owners possess the space where the musicians play).
Text by Lionelle Hamanaka
Jazz musicians and fans gathered on Feb. 1 to express their enthusiasm, solidarity and support for Local 802’s Justice for Jazz Artists campaign.
The panel, entitled “Coming Together as One: Fighting for Your Rights on the NYC Club Scene,” kicked off the evening and was followed by a performance by the Lou Donaldson Quartet with special guest Keisha St. Joan.
Text by Michael Chapin
One of my clients bought a very expensive instrument from a store. The store, acting as agent for a private owner, wanted her to provide an out-of-state address where they could say the instrument was shipped to when she actually took it home herself. This way the store wouldn’t collect New York sales tax.
Why? The original owner didn’t want any potential sale to include sales tax but instead wanted all the money a buyer could come up with for themselves – or they wouldn’t sell it.
My client came to me at tax time with this problem. We decided she should pay something called “use tax” in lieu of the sales tax the store wouldn’t collect. Read more: in Allegro (Archive: Volume 113 No. 2 February, 2013): http://www.local802afm.org/2013/02/buying-an-expensive-instrument-dont-try-to-avoid-sales-tax/.
