We Need a Union
Tino Gagliardi, President, American Federation of Musicians
Please attend our demonstration/rally in NYC 12/15 at noon!
INDIE MUSICIANS NEED A UNION THAT FIGHTS FOR US
AFM contracts provide excellent benefits for those who perform on major label (Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Sony) recordings. But the AFM has never challenged those corporations to extend benefits to the musicians and DJ/producers who create the indie recordings they distribute and have failed to organize indie labels distributed by indie distributors (DistroKid, TuneCore, etc).
As a result, generations of indie musicians have lived and died without basic Union protection. The Union, less than 1/7th the size of its 1960’s peak, has been powerless to fight back as our rights have been trampled by Silicon Valley mega-corporations. And pay standards have shrunk to fit Spotify’s .0038 cent starvation wage.
Recording musicians are now facing mass displacement and devaluation via generative AI.
The AFM could fight back when it renegotiates its contract with the major labels in 2026. But the elites who control AFM recording negotiations don’t believe AI affects them.
In 2023, both SAG-AFTRA and WGA struck the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) to win protections against AI displacement. The AFM didn’t prepare to strike, failed to win significant AI protections, and covered up the results by surrounding the negotiation and ratification process with NDA protected secrecy.
If the AFM uses the same “strategy” for its January 2026 negotiations with the major labels, ALL recording musicians– not just the several thousand already recording regularly for major labels under AFM contract– will face mass displacement and devaluation.
Fighting back demands the unity of ALL musicians: the indie musicians who have been excluded in the past must now be included in demands and given voice in negotiations.
We Need a Union is calling ALL recording Musicians/DJ-producers to JOIN US in demanding that the AFM fight for indie musicians by signing the Petition below:
For further information, please see Frequently Asked Questions
Please circulate, and post to social media.
Petition by
Sponsored by
To:
Tino Gagliardi, President, American Federation of Musicians
From:
[Your Name]
WE NEED A UNION
PETITION TO THE AMERICAN FEDERATION of MUSICIANS:
We the undersigned indie musicians demand that the AFM (AMERICAN FEDERATION of MUSICIANS - the “musicians union”): fight for indie musicians at the 2026 Sound Recording Labor Agreement negotiations with the major labels by demanding the following items:
No licensing of major label catalogue to any company for use in the training of generative AI (Artificial Intelligence) systems without consent of the musicians who created it;
That the Major Labels provide portable benefits (for example, health insurance) for musicians performing on all indie labels distributed by Major Labels (UMG, WEA, Sony);
Fix the term of the new contract to be negotiated between the AFM and the major labels so that it ends on April 30th, 2028.
(This will enable the AFM to participate in the United Auto Workers’s call for united action— possibly a general strike—on May 1st, 2028).
We also demand voice in all discussions pertaining to these negotiations, and that the negotiations with the Major Labels be open to all AFM members; i.e. NO “non-disclosure agreements”; NO extraordinary secrecy.
We stand ready to work with the AFM in building the power to leverage these goals. We believe achieving them is in the interest of all musicians, and necessary for the survival of the AFM.
However, indie musicians are a majority of working musicians. If the AFM is unable or unwilling to represent us, it must withdraw its claim of exclusive jurisdiction* over indie musicians’ work, and allow us to organize ourselves without threat of retaliation for those wishing to hold more than one musicians union card.** It would also clear the way for indie musicians to pursue labor rights and collective bargaining under state laws, something the AFM has failed to do.
*Jurisdiction - Currently the AFL-CIO recognizes only the AFM as the representative of all musicians
**According to current AFM rules, membership in an alternative musicians union is punishable by fines, expulsion, and blacklisting.
“This petition is sponsored by the “WE NEED a UNION” network: members of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), Austin Texas Musicians Organization (ATXMO), Indie Musicians Caucus of the AFM (IMC), Music Workers Alliance (MWA), who believe that WE, indie musicians, need their own union. The “WE NEED a UNION” network is open to the participation of all rank-and-file working indie musicians.
Contact: WNUcampaign@gmail.com.
For further information, please see Frequently Asked Questions:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/114utA--E956MkJWS-0kooD86VABLOQCMdt2o5ZpcUF4/edit?usp=sharing