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Post by woodbutcher on Feb 25, 2011 10:28:54 GMT -5
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Post by rrobbo06 on May 5, 2012 18:23:45 GMT -5
I am a retired musician. I once belonged to the union years ago in this area. I had to deal with a character named Col.Bo. Saunders. This guy liked to sabotage musicians in the area by nit picking their contracts to death. The consensus for most of the players in the area were that we were sick to death of this guy. I watched him one night in a bar hasseling a band about their contract. You would have thought a warning of some kind would have been sufficient but, the Colonel had to stack a stiff penalty on the wages of the band. He used to grin from ear to ear as he pounced on most of the locals. He always to the side of the proprieter in any circumstance.
THAT, is why there is no more union state anymore. True, the union was great when I played out of state. I was treated fairly and with respect. In Florida, the whole situation was reversed. Unless, you were an orchestra member, you could count on being stiffed by the union. That's why a lot of musicians left the state. The gold coast is better by far for bookings and such but, this coast has serious problems with the union. I had one incident where I called my local and the guy didn't show up until three hours late. The ownere of the club in Clearwater wanted to fire us for not being a disco band. The agent booked us with any mention in the contract about playing disco music. We did our show and after the third set, we were told that we were fired. Never the less, we finished our final set and waited and waited for our rep. What happened? We received half our wages and were told that it was better than nothing. After that, I dumped the union and all of those percentages on the contracts, union quartly fees and wrote them, and told them to take their membership and shove it.
However, I would join the union again but, with caution. A business manager is an assett when dealing with union contracts. Once bitten, twice shy.
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