New York City jazz musicians deserve a retirement like anyone else. Sign our petition to help them earn pension payments from NYC jazz clubs — at no cost to the clubs or musicians.

More Background on J4JA Campaign

June 19th, 2009
Jrmance

Junior Mance - Photo credit Jon Hammond

For more information about the history of the admissions sales tax, see this comprehensive article from Local 802’s Allegro.

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This entry was posted on Friday, June 19th, 2009 at 6:29 pm and is filed under History, Sales Tax. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

4 Responses to “More Background on J4JA Campaign”

  1. Todd Weeks on Hammond Cast 174 Justice For Jazz Artists J4JA special KYOU Radio « Hammondcast’s Weblog says:
    June 27, 2009 at 11:44 am

    [...] York– Todd Weeks on HammondCast 174 Justice For Jazz Artists J4JA special KYOU Radio *LINK: J4JA INFO TOOD BRYANT WEEKS, Jazz Rep at Local 802 Musicians Union and Author of “Luck’s In My [...]

  2. Todd Weeks on Hammond Cast 174 Justice For Jazz Artists J4JA special KYOU Radio « Hammond Jazz says:
    June 27, 2009 at 11:45 am

    [...] York– Todd Weeks on HammondCast 174 Justice For Jazz Artists J4JA special KYOU Radio *LINK: J4JA INFO TOOD BRYANT WEEKS, Jazz Rep at Local 802 Musicians Union and Author of “Luck’s In My [...]

  3. Radam Schwartz says:
    June 29, 2009 at 11:03 pm

    Here’s my problem with your petition. Am I a jazz musician? My name is Radam Schwartz, I have been on over 40 recordings, worked with many great musicians and singers, currently have a CD out on Savant Records that is on the national charts etc., but you make no provisions for me because I have never played at the Vanguard, last time I played at the Blue Note was 1985 with Arthur Prysock, last time I played Smoke was 2004 with David Fathead Newman, I don’t work at Iridium (canceled a gig I had there in May); don’t work the Jazz Standard etc. Yet I have worked the last 21 days mostly in NYC and Newark,NJ. There are more me’s than the list of musicians you posted and even more under me, those barely making it or part timing. As usual there is nothing in it for us, as you cater to the high profile cats, and if you check my work out I am borderline high profile. RS

  4. Todd Weeks says:
    June 30, 2009 at 3:12 pm

    Hi Radam:

    Your comment is perceptive and reflects the reality for a large number of musicians like you, who as you write, are “borderline high profile.”

    Some more background:

    This initiative came about after an extensive examination into the scene here in NYC, beginning in the early 1990s. Local 802 canvassed 1000 musicians who worked in 10 of the largest clubs in Manhattan (which made sense at the time, for a number of reasons detailed below), and found that about 220 of them were members of Local 802. This was a jazz-centric initiative, btw, because it was jazz musicians who started it.

    The intent has always been to serve the jazz community at large, but the reality on the ground has also been that as a body the local needs to allocate its resources where it can do the most good—and when the Local 802 Jazz Advisory Committee lobbied to get the NY state law changed in 2006 that allowed for the door tax to go towards benefits, its original intent was to address the needs of older, established musicians who were members but had no pension. As you know all too well, historically, most jazz artists have had no access to benefits, or were not duly informed that there was a pension plan that they could access via the union.

    However, there were (and are) many established older players who were (and are) capable of vesting in the plan with a few years of steady gigs, if those gigs could be covered. So—the intent was to help these older established cats first—because they were in a position to be helped. And they also were subject to many years of little or no advocacy by the AFM–so this was a re-dress.

    The other important criteria centered around how much the club was charging at the door, whether they served food and/or beverages (law is specific on that), and what the capacity of the club was.

    Frankly, in order for a club to be eligible, there needed to be enough money changing hands to make it worth it—because the 8.375% door tax is, in reality, just a taste, but it adds up over time. So percentage wise, the cover needed to be high enough to justify the effort to win the right to divert the money off the door!

    That’s the long answer.

    The short answer is that the folks behind J4JA feel strongly that if this effort goes through locally at the clubs that fit the above criteria, then in the future the campaign can find ways to implement similar programs at smaller clubs, and get a foot in the door at all these venues to help change other important things like wages, working conditions–and attempt to eradicate the general climate of exploitation that has more or less dominated the scene from time immemorial.

    So—this is a small, significant step, but it must be achievable—and have some political resonance—to have a real, lasting effect on the scene as a whole.

    That’s why J4JA is going after the big clubs.

    For now.

    Todd Bryant Weeks