WHAT A YEAR!
BY MATT KIMBROUGH
I am your National Treasurer and Chair the Finance
Committee. I also sit as a Trustee
to the Health and Retirement Plan.
Money is the lifeblood of any institution. The numbers tell a tale of
its health and its history in the most objective way possible. Looking back
over the last year, all I can say
about AFTRA is, WOW! WHAT A YEAR!
First, the overall diagnosis. A year ago, in the trough of a
horrible industry-wide recession and falling job numbers, we formulated a
budget that projected a deficit in excess of $800,000 for the year. We feared a
future of declining revenues and
reduced service. We froze the
salaries of better paid staff, we cut benefit accruals for both staff and
participants in the Plan, and contemplated how we could raise revenue to keep
our doors open. Now, nearing the end of the fiscal year, on April 30, we will
have finished it with a SURPLUS OF OVER $2,000,000, nearly 3,000 new members in
Los Angeles, restoration of cuts on the staff, as many as five new staff hires,
and a Health and Retirement plan given the “green light” of good health by our actuaries. We have a
budget for next year that projects easily covering our costs. What a year.
The fact is, we have a lot more jobs in television available
to our members today, and they have responded in droves by joining or
re-instating their memberships.
That is a good thing, but AFTRA Leadership sees this as a challenge more than merely good
fortune. We have changed the primary mission of our union from being “in service” to “organizing”. What is the difference?
It means you raise money to have staff and members out in the field,
communicating with current and future members and employers, making the case
that AFTRA is a union that works.
At Convention last summer we raised our initiation fees $300, mandating
that all of that money go to create an organizing staff and an “AFTRA
AMBASSADOR” campaign that would put our leaders in the field meeting and
talking directly with membership and listening to them, using this practice to
develop future campaigns and create a personal relationship between the union
and its members. We realize that membership must have a personal relationship
with AFTRA in order to know its value to them. Ultimately, it means we will be
going out into the un-organized non-union areas of our industry and make the
case to those workers that their lives would improve by being a union member
and securing a union contract.
We are in the process of making a new union. This union is
one that reflects the new 21st Century work place in electronic news
and entertainment. It is a union that brings all media performers together to
maximize their collective power. It is a union that is not afraid to join with
other unions to bring all performers together and, by joining, create a voice
that will preserve the benefits of a union contract in every part of the
industry. It is a union that
recognizes that all the incredibly diverse delivery systems of programming require a nuanced and
diverse approach; that if we are
going to participate in all the new opportunities that are presenting
themselves that we will have to be recognized as the place where the talent can
be found, and where employers can
find practical contracts and where, if one is fortunate enough to get hired,
members can forge a good life for themselves and their loved ones. THE AFTRA
LEADERSHIP TEAM has been the forgers of this vision. With
your support, we can bring this all to fruition.
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