AGMA Members: Our Union’s Future is in Your Hands

Those of you who know me, know that I am a passionate advocate for singers who is not afraid to speak truth to power. I am writing this to urge all AGMA members to make an informed decision in AGMA’s Constitutional Referendum.

Even if AGMA membership seems to work well for you, please bear in mind that you have many colleagues for whom it does not. Where there is inequity there cannot be solidarity, and without solidarity a labor union cannot function.

• A functioning labor union does not offer one level of protection and service to some of its members and a lesser level of protection and service to others.
• A functioning labor union guarantees all member classifications representation in governance.
• A functioning labor union offers its membership as much engagement and information as can safely be shared without risking sensitive contract negotiations, through access to Board meetings, meeting minutes, and an accounting of Board members’ votes.
• A functioning labor union encourages, rather than suppresses, member participation in their own governance.

I have heard AGMA’s leadership argue that they do offer equitable and adequate protection, service, representation, information access, and participation to all its members. They most assuredly do not, and you must refuse to take their word for it in the absence of evidence. The stakes for this referendum are just too high.

I suspect that very few of you know how this referendum came about. It began with a set of ten proposed amendments to AGMA’s Constitution submitted by a group of rank-and-file members last July, and I am among those who signed them. The amendment proposals that we submitted last summer were created to serve, individually and collectively, to make our union structurally more representative and to make the actions and decisions of the Board of Governors [BOG] more visible to rank-and-file members. Please consider just how difficult it was to produce and distribute ten amendments and gather nearly 70 signatures on each of ten petitions in the middle of a pandemic. The submission of signed, hard-copy originals delivered to AGMA was the only way we could be sure that our petitions would be accepted. Because we couldn’t safely gather in one location to sign the petitions, each of us had to print hard copies of all ten amendments, sign each one individually, and mail them to a single location so they could be compiled and delivered to AGMA’s offices. It was a huge undertaking, but we managed to pull it off because we all care passionately about the future of our industry and our union.

You can therefore hopefully imagine how frustrating it was that AGMA’s leadership did not respond to our petitions for four months. When they finally did, their response came in the form of an announcement that they would offer a competing vision for our constitution, bundle nine of our ten proposed amendments together, and create a ballot offering members a three-way vote between their constitutional rewrite, a bundle of nine of our proposals, and an option to leave the constitution unchanged. We expected membership to be offered an up or down vote on individual amendments, as has historically been the case when constitutional amendments have been brought to a vote. Instead, leadership bundled the amendments without our advice or consent, and unveiled a competing proposal which they have since aggressively promoted via webinars and email blasts. In addition, I observed both a webinar and a BOG meeting in which President Ray Menard used hostile language to disparage the Members’ Petition Amendments [MPAs] without actually speaking to their substance.

Thanks to leadership’s efforts, so little information about our proposed amendments has reached the membership that I have heard more than one AGMA member express confusion about the ballot and why it isn’t just an up or down vote on the Board’s Constitutional Rewrite [BCR]. They do not even know what the MPAs are, or why they are on the ballot. We had the right to expect the MPAs to be brought to a timely vote, and for our members to have the option to evaluate them individually and on their own merits. By responding to our proposed amendments as they have, the Board has effectively subverted the will and the effort of AGMA rank-and-file members.

I would be grateful if you would take the time now to have a look at the changes our amendments propose. I’ll offer a brief summary below, and you will find a full red-lined description posted here.

Referendum #1

• Classification audit
• Removes professional category groupings to guarantee board representation for each member classification
• Bill of Rights for members including anti-discrimination protections, free speech, disclosure of records – including financial records  
• Removes authorization for creating of affiliate member categories

Referendum #2

• Guarantees member-elected Executive Council  
• Specifies permissible redactions from meeting minutes and circumstances under which the board can enter executive session  
• Returns authority for committee creation and slate proposals to the board

Referendum #3

• Two-year terms for all elected positions 
• Reorganizes the officer corps to ensure member classification representation 
• Special election if vacancy in the office of president and more than six months remaining in the term 
• Guarantees member classification representation in geographic area committees

Referendum #4

• Sets uniform minimum requirements to seek elected office 
• Ensures that stage manager, director and choreographer board seats not restricted to NYC & Chicago

Referendum #5

• Guarantees proportional representation by convention delegates

Referendum #6

• Disallows proxy voting in the Board of Governors

Referendum #7

• Reduces threshold to ratify merger and affiliation agreements

Referendum #8

• This is the only referendum the board is permitting an up-or-down vote on, as a separate ballot question. It lowers the initiation fee, allows the entire initiation fee to be paid in an installment plan, and gradually raises the cap on working dues for the less than 300 members earning over $100,000 a year on AGMA contracts, beginning in 2022.

Referendum #9

• Moves AGMA to a closed membership model

Referendum #10

• Restores hierarchy of governing documents

We submitted these amendment proposals by redlining the Constitution’s current language so that members can see exactly what would be changed. And again, we proposed them as individual amendments so that members could consider each individually, and vote for only those specific changes they agree with.

So why did AGMA’s leadership sit on the MPAs for four months rather than bringing them to a vote? Their explanation is that, unbeknownst to the membership, they had already begun developing a full-scale constitutional rewrite before they received our petitions, so they decided that the best course of action would be to give the members the opportunity to consider the MPAs and the BCR simultaneously. While I understand this explanation, I would be a lot more credulous to it had I not heard President Menard, in the very webinar where he offered it, also accuse us of deliberately bringing our amendments for the express purpose of derailing the Board’s constitutional rewrite. This accusation is baseless. We could not have had any knowledge of what they were working on and were considering only how to improve our union for the benefit of all. It was jarring and hurtful, to hear our President characterize our efforts as malicious. I would also be more credulous to their argument that members be able to consider these proposals alongside each other, had leadership invited us to hold webinars supporting ours as well, instead of vaguely maligning them while urging members to REJECT them in Facebook posts.

Here are some further reasons that I cannot believe the BCR was created in good faith or that it had been in the works for a long time:

• It looks sloppy and rushed, especially in comparison with our carefully prepared and presented amendment proposals. When the BCR was first made available, we pointed out that its language strips the members of their ability to remove governors and officers for misconduct. In response, President Menard issued a statement that this was an honest mistake that no one had caught and that had not been discussed in the Board meeting when the BCR was recommended, and that it shouldn’t stop us for voting for the BCR as this issue could be corrected in the Bylaws. However, there were rank-and-file members who attended that Board meeting and who clearly remembered this issue being debated without any changes being made to language of the BCR (Menard claims to have no recollection of this part of the meeting he himself was running). As language in the Constitution takes precedence over language in the Bylaws, it is also not the case that this issue can be corrected in the Bylaws after the fact (see this video for an explanation). But even if it could, why rush to a vote on a flawed document and ask us to just trust that they’ll fix this after the fact? Isn’t our Constitution much too important for a rush job? It’s not like we’re facing some kind of deadline, especially when you consider how long they sat on the MPAs. Why ask us to vote in favor of giving up this right and just trust them to fix it later, especially in the face of strong evidence that it cannot be fixed later?
• Why was membership never informed that so important a project as a rewrite of our constitution was underway, or invited to provide any input for the process? AGMA began posting summaries of BOG meeting minutes to their website back in May, 2020, but there is not one single mention made of the BCR until October. Yet the summary of the July 13, 2020 meeting does acknowledge the receipt of the MPAs, and the topic of constitutional amendments was raised again in the August 10th meeting. It seems extremely odd that there would have been discussions about our amendments with no mention to the membership that an entire Constitutional Rewrite was underway. Not until the special meetings called in October to discuss the BCR was there any mention whatsoever that a constitutional rewrite had been in the works. So, when Menard characterized our amendments as an attempt to subvert a project that had been in the works for over a year, I have to call foul. It seems far more likely that their slapdash constitutional rewrite was hastily and secretly cobbled together to prevent the members from reviewing and voting on our amendments.
• Why did the Board not take the time to carefully redline their proposed changes to the Constitution, as we did? They claimed that given how sweeping the changes were it would just be too complicated, but that is absurd – you can view several of the sections their rewrite addresses with redlines here. If they really wanted the members to have all of the information they need to make an informed decision, they could have shown their work rather than just holding webinars to tell us what is in their rewrite, how great it is, and counting on us to take their word for it.

All that aside, the main reason that I do not believe the BCR was created in good faith and had been in the works for a long time, is that I lost any ability to trust AGMA’s leadership to tell us the truth and look out for all our interests quite some time ago. I’ll explain, and unlike leadership I am not going to expect you to take my word for any of this but will back up my assertions.

Let’s go back to the ways in which AGMA fails to live up to the expectations one would have of a labor union.

AGMA offers one level of protection and service to some of its members and a lesser level of protection and service to others. AGMA members who are full-time employees of signatory companies receive health and unemployment benefits. However, unlike Equity and SAG-AFTRA, AGMA does not offer the ability to qualify for portable benefits to its itinerant workers. We now know that this two-tiered service model is intentional, thanks to the meeting minutes leaked to NPR – the minutes of the BOG’s July 22, 2013 meeting includes a memo from former Executive Director Alan Gordon in which he recommends maintaining the union’s “policy of essentially benign neglect” towards soloists in order to discourage them from trying to negotiate to “achieve some measure of real protection (beyond Workers Comp) in the event of career-ending injuries or accidents at work and/or for real health insurance.” Leadership may pay lip service to helping itinerant members, but this policy of benign neglect is clearly still very much in place. Remember that survey we all filled out last June regarding our health insurance needs? Can you recall whether there was any follow-up, or what form that follow-up was supposed to take? If leadership has any intention of taking action to help itinerant workers with health or unemployment benefits, they are keeping that as secret as they did their BCR.

AGMA does not guarantee all member classifications representation in governance. Currently, governance reserves seats for stage directors, stage managers, and choreographers categorically as a group, even though the needs of each classification are very different. As a consequence, we currently have no stage directors in governance and thus no one to advocate effectively for their needs. While the BCR does not improve classification representation, the MPAs do. Here is a breakdown of what AGMA’s Executive Council would look like under the current Constitution, the BCR, and the MPAs. The MPAs also guarantee that all Executive Council seats are member-elected rather than Board-appointed.

AGMA does not offer its membership as much engagement and information as can safely be shared without risking sensitive contract negotiations, through access to Board meetings, meeting minutes, and an accounting of Board members’ votes. AGMA does not encourage but rather suppresses member participation in their own governance. We have only had access to summaries of BOG meeting minutes since May of this year, and no way of knowing what has been redacted. We now know from the NPR leak that the reason governance has been reluctant to provide rank-and-file members with access to Board meetings and meeting minutes is not out of a desire to protect sensitive negotiating information but rather to protect Board members from retaliation on the job should they find themselves working alongside members who don’t like the way they voted, i.e. they are intentionally hiding their actions and votes from the members who elected them: “All discussion of union business during meetings of the Board or any of its Committees is confidential. The ability of members to do their elected duty without fear of redress in the workplace depends upon all members’ recognition of this responsibility.” To my knowledge, this is utterly unheard of elsewhere in labor union culture – if members don’t like the way their elected representatives behave, they are supposed to have redress by voting them out. Board members should obviously be accountable to those who elected them. AGMA also approved a policy whereby members could observe Board meetings in 2009 and then never published it, effectively ensuring that members would continue to be kept out. After NPR leaked the policy, members began to request and receive permission to observe Board meetings for the first time, beginning in September. I’ve since seen some Board members mendaciously argue that anyone who wanted to attend could simply have asked what the policy was, but any Board member who responded truthfully to that question would have been in violation of Board confidentiality. I know, because in the past I did ask, and the answer that I received was that “as no such policy has been published, if one existed I would not be permitted to tell you.” Finally, if AGMA were seriously committed to member engagement and participation, they would have treated our proposed amendments with respect and brought them to a vote, rather than suppressing them for four months and then maligning them in favor of the BCR.

AGMA members are largely disaffected. The last time we held an election the turnout was about 21%. It is not surprising that 79% of you feel like your vote doesn’t matter, given that you have so little insight into what your elected officials are even doing. But this referendum vote is different. This vote matters.

This is a vote that will determine the language of our Constitution.

This is a vote that will determine the composition of the Board and the Executive Council.

This is a vote that will determine the degree of access that members will have to Board meetings and minutes.

This vote can facilitate a union that provides equitable protections and service for all of us.

This vote can facilitate the exploration of health and unemployment benefits for itinerant members and end the policy of benign neglect.

This is our union, and our Constitution should reflect our consideration and will. Don’t take leadership’s word for what is in BCR, and don’t take my word for what is in the MPAs. Take the time to inform yourselves about what is in each of the proposed changes, and vote for the ideas that you believe will best serve all of us.