{"id":20500,"date":"2014-09-20T11:08:36","date_gmt":"2014-09-20T15:08:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=20500"},"modified":"2014-11-02T10:48:49","modified_gmt":"2014-11-02T14:48:49","slug":"vancouver-musicians-win-legal-battle-against-the-american-federation-of-musicians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2014\/09\/20\/vancouver-musicians-win-legal-battle-against-the-american-federation-of-musicians\/","title":{"rendered":"Vancouver Musicians Win Legal Battle Against The American Federation of Musicians"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
Vancouver Symphony Orchestra Photo by Christine McAvoy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Michael Vincent | In a two year-old battle\u00a0that has potentially wide-reaching consequences for musicians’ unions across Canada, the\u00a0B.C. Supreme Court have ruled that\u00a0the Vancouver Musicians\u2019 Association \u00a0(VMA) Local 145 had the right to bargain without interference from the U.S.\u00a0based parent union.<\/p>\n

According to a report by the Vancouver Sun<\/a>,\u00a0the B.C. provincial court ruled against The American Federation of Musicians Union (AFM) a.k.a. the Canadian Federation of Musicians, asserting they hampered the bargaining rights of Local 145, which represents about 2,000 performers, directors, arrangers, orchestrators and copyists across the province.<\/p>\n

The quarrel started after the VMA\u00a0felt their interest were not being adequately addressed by the AFM. The local decided to negotiate a contract (the\u00a0Vancouver Film Orchestra Agreement) without the approval\u00a0of the AFM, allowing Vancouver area union members\u00a0to take jobs in Vancouver’s\u00a0lucrative film industry.<\/p>\n

As a result of the initiative, the VMA’s\u00a0nine board members were ousted and given punitive fines totalling $500, 000 by the International Executive Board on the AFM. The VMA members were also given lifetime expulsions for bylaw infractions and not living up to their oath of office. The local was placed in trusteeship while the two battled each other in court over the right to bargain\u00a0without interference.<\/p>\n

The board members won a temporary stay after a BC court ordered the parent union action must wait and hear the results of the pending decision on the case\u00a0by the B.C. Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Justice Carol Ross stated the bylaw was problematic and should not apply in B.C. because it ran counter to the association\u2019s fundamental purpose, which is to act as a collective bargaining agent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only way to preserve the primary purpose of the AFM Bylaws is to declare Article 15, section 6(b) void and unenforceable as against the VMA and its members. Therefore, I set aside the trusteeship imposed on the AFM over the VMA,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

In a statement to the Vancouver Sun<\/a>, the local\u2019s ousted president David Brown, said, \u201cIt\u2019s been a long road, but it\u2019s great news that the democratically elected representatives of Vancouver\u2019s professional music community are back in charge of their local union [\u2026] The trusteeship is over.\u201d<\/p>\n

International Executive Board was disappointed by the ruling and is considering an appeal.<\/p>\n

+++<\/p>\n

For more history behind this story see below:<\/p>\n

American Federation of Musicians in NYC fines the entire Vancouver Executive Board 50K each<\/a><\/p>\n

Vancouver Executive Board win legal injunction against AFM<\/a><\/p>\n

David and Goliath: Composer fights back against $50 K in union fines<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Vincent | In a two year-old battle\u00a0that has potentially wide-reaching consequences for musicians’ unions across Canada, the\u00a0B.C. Supreme Court have ruled that\u00a0the Vancouver Musicians\u2019 Association \u00a0(VMA) Local 145 had the right to bargain without interference from the U.S.\u00a0based parent union. According to a report by the Vancouver Sun,\u00a0the B.C. provincial court ruled against The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":22480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[117,14,23,39],"tags":[4915,4913,4914,4695,4912,4675,4916],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2014\/09\/Screen-Shot-2014-09-20-at-10.13.32-AM.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-5kE","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20500"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20500"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22481,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20500\/revisions\/22481"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20500"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=20500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}