AB5: Assessing its implications, impact and the impetus for fair wage progress
Bird & Beckett is in league with Jazz in the Neighborhood to press for improvements in the wages and working conditions of the Bay Area’s gigging jazz musicians. We’ve been at it awhile, and continue to press the issue with musicians and audiences alike.
State Law AB5, which took effect January 1st, sets new requirements for determining when an individual worker should be considered an employee or an independent contractor, and was at first thought by most voters to pertain basically to people who drive for ridesharing and delivery behemoths — Uber, Doordash, etc. — and other app-based employers.
What has emerged is that it is also being applied to performing artists (musicians, actors, etc.) and therefore to arts presenting organizations (like Bird & Beckett).
There is some fear among artists and venues that this could backfire a bit. We’re hoping to understand the law, work with it and if possible, go beyond it. A pair of town hall meetings for jazz musicians on the law, its implications and a positive path forward will soon be announced by Bird & Beckett and Jazz in the Neighborhood.
Mario Guarneri of Jazz in the Neighborhood suggests that the article linked here, posted online by the organization “Arts for a Better Bay Area” (ABBA) is the best current round-up of information on AB5. Read up on ABBA itself here.
As noted above, Mario and your Bird & Beckett proprietor, Eric Whittington, are in league to continue to make progress on improving wage and working conditions for gigging musicians while the AB-5 drama continues.
We’ll soon launch an “Independent Musicians Alliance,” intended to be a musicians’ solidarity organization that can promote the free flow of information among artists about the Bay Area’s gigging landscape, so they can, as a group, push for and achieve better wage standards (including “fringe” benefits like group insurance for health care, dental care and vision care; a pension fund; an emergency support fund for housing and similar crises) and better working conditions.
To achieve these wage and working condition improvements, and especially if AB-5 takes full effect, the IMA might also act as the employer of record on musicians’ gigs — lifting the administrative burden off the shoulders of bandleaders and venues of complying with the law, and reducing costs so that less money is extracted by the taxing authorities, the accountants and lawyers (god love ’em all) from the money gigging musicians make on their gigs.
The main thing we want is for musicians to be free to pursue their art as a profession, and to be able to afford to live in the Bay Area so that our cultural landscape is something we can all be proud of, enjoy and benefit from in these trying times.
We ask you to keep in mind the key question:
Should professional artists work for free or for peanuts?
Or for fair pay?
Stay tuned… and whether you’re a pro or a fan,
start thinking in terms of solidarity.
We’ll leave you with ABBA’s mission statement – which we could do well to take as a model:
“Arts for a Better Bay Area’s objective is to develop a network of artists, advocates, and supporters dedicated to building community-wide solidarity to increase support and equitable access to the arts. As a coalition of individuals and organizations we inform and mobilize the arts community through community-driven action.”
or, as it’s been put by that other ABBA:
You can dance
You can jive
Having the time of your life
Ooh, see that girl
Watch that scene
Digging the dancing queen
Gotta love those socialist Swedes!
And Sweet Sue, who’s learning to lead
after a lifetime of relying on someone else to do it!
It’s really never to late to learn a new dance step
and it’s always time to teach it to someone new!https://www.betterbayarea.org/state_lawab5?fbclid=IwAR0Q8YlkYRrOUMkOloo9OTc5ZNBEWgTiXZT2SrB8sQLjNhIBUt8O-nIqJi8 ... See MoreSee Less
Vocalist Gail Dobson has just released a deeply beautiful new 6-song EP called “How Fragile We Are” and will launch it here with terrific musicians who participated in the recording — Masaru Koga on sax, percussion and shakuhachi, guitarist Luke Westbrook and drummer Alan Hall, joined by bassist Peter Barshay.
