Official Business

sares.jpgArthur Paul Sares, 82, of Delray Beach, passed away peacefully on October 24, 2005 after a brief illness. Art Sares has been compared to Tommy Dorsey as one of the great lyrical trombone players of the world.

After enlisting and serving in World War II, he earned his BA and MA degrees from Northwestern University and the Chicago Conservatory of Music, respectively. He played lead trombone with Frank Sinatra, Burt Bacharach, the Chicago Festival Symphony Orchestra, and hundreds of the biggest name acts in the world. Sares was a professor of music at Palm Beach Community College and Florida International University. He was also the lead trombonist for the Florida Symphonic Pops, Palm Beach Pops, and Boca Pops and a member of Local 655 for nearly 20 years.

Scales...Holding the Line or a Race to the Bottom?

One of the issues against Free Trade is the lack of protection against jobs being exported to countries with the cheapest labor. The pressure businesses put on workers with the threat of moving operations overseas in search of lower wages erodes workers’ bargaining power...the lower wages pull the wages of the higher-paid workers down just by the threat of moving operations.

Musicians, like other service workers, are lucky in that their services are not exportable (with the exception of recording work, which is another story…see Legislative Roundup on page 2). Musicians need to be where the audience is. However, the threat of local musicians underbidding other musicians is just as real as the threat of exporting factory jobs to third world countries.

That is where wage scales come in. Local 655’s scales, established by members, set the bottom line that we agree not to go below. If everyone abides by these scales, instead of fighting each other to see who will work for the least merely to get the gig, we can pressure employers to pay us what we’re worth. Let’s work together to make things better for all...insist on playing for no less than union scale.


Union Gig...or not?

  Union   Nonunion
Wages $100 $100
Pension Return* $75  $0
Recorded for broadcast**  $385 $0
Less Expenses:     
Union Dues  $3 $0
Collections when stiffed***  $0 $37
Total $557 $63

*Based on life expectancy of 80 years

**Based on 1-hour variety show TV broadcast

***Based on Dunn & Bradstreet collections letters.

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