Recording Committee Report and Recommendation

Tuesday, July 20, 2004

Over the past 7 months the committee has met several times. Many of our issues have been brought up in executive board meetings. Of much concern to the recording committee is their dissatisfaction with the union and their representation.

The committee has developed an outline of the qualities they seek in a representative and their goals, including:

  • Better representation to the Federation and the recording industry
  • More business development and organization
  • A desire for a representative with recording industry experience
  • A bilingual representative was thought to be advantageous

Some possibilities for potential candidates were discussed, including recruiting President Walker as our rep. He decided that it was in the local's best interest for him to maintain his energies where they are presently concentrated. Since we had no potential candidate for recording representative to recommend to the executive board, we decided to keep working together and to continue searching for solutions. Some of the committee members suggested that Steve Roitstein offer his services as recording representative, an idea he originally dismissed.

However, more recently, as we continued to watch the developments of the music business, our Federation, and our local, it became increasingly clear that we needed to take aggressive action if we are going to have a viable future as an industry and a local. After discussing this with his family and with President Walker, Roitstein decided to offer his services as recording representative. Toward that end, Roitstein created a proposal for the position of Recording Representative and emailed the proposal to the recording committee and to President Walker for their feedback, which was unanimously positive. Copies of the proposal and the recording committee member's replies are available to the executive board.

 The recording committee thereby recommends that the executive board name Steve Roitstein as the recording representative of AFM local 655.

Steve Roitstein, Chair