Petition to Pay the Musicians at the London Olympics

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 3 Jul 2012 1:17 pm

As many of you already know, the organizers of the London summer Olympics have decided that the musicians they engage to play for various events at the Olympic games should all work for... FREE. They believe that musicians should be willing to work for the 'exposure', and not worry about things like paying for rent, food, healthcare, etc. Clearly, they are not asking caterers, security guards, managers, or thousands of other workers to 'donate' their services to the Olympics. This is utterly disrespectful and devaluing of the work of musicians and the years of dedicated learning and practice that is required to create this art.

That's why I created a petition to the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG). I hope to get at least 10,000 signatures, if not more.

Will you please support musicians everywhere who refuse to play "for the exposure" by signing this petition?

Click here:

http://signon.org/sign/pay-the-musician ... by=1678850

Also, if you are on Facebook or other social media and would post the link on your page, it would really help spread the word faster.

Thank you.

Jim

Rick Batey · Post by **Rick Batey** » 3 Jul 2012 2:22 pm

Signed and facebooked. Thank you Jim.

Archie Nicol · Post by **Archie Nicol** » 3 Jul 2012 3:06 pm

Done.

Arch.

chas smith · Post by **chas smith** » 3 Jul 2012 8:18 pm

I'm in, and you can probably imagine what I think of those people.

Rick Campbell · Post by **Rick Campbell** » 4 Jul 2012 9:19 am

I'd say there's bands standing in line to play at the Olympics... for free. Good crowd, good sound equipment, good stage,maybe a little TV, etc... Many bands would do that for the exposure. Why fault the Olympics, if they can get it for nothing, they will. If no bands will play for free, they they will be forced to pay or do without. So, if musicians donate their time, it's them that are at fault, not the Olympics.

If the Olympics were here, and I could get some free gigs, I'd do it, and I think many others here would too. I'd like to have that on my resume, and I think a lot of others would too.

If the Grand Ole Opry called and asked you to come and play a show for free........... how many here would turn that down? I always got paid to play the Opry, but if I had never played and they offered it to me..... you bet you A$$ I'd have been there. What about Leno or Letterman..... yep, I'd do it.

chas smith · Post by **chas smith** » 4 Jul 2012 10:43 am

Rick, I can easily understand your argument and point. What I disagree with is, the GOO is about music and Leno and Letterman are about exposure and unless I'm mistaken, they pay next to nothing, because it's about the exposure.

It appears that the attitude of the Olympic committee is that music has no value and should be free. I've noticed a similar attitude on the internet.

I live in Los Angeles, where I've been playing in various kinds of ensembles for the past 40 years. Sometimes I've gotten paid, sometimes it's for beer and parking and more often then not, it's for the love of making music. What I dislike is employers, who want my services, who have the money and are getting paid, themselves, who don't think that my skills and abilities have any value.

Bob Blair · Post by **Bob Blair** » 4 Jul 2012 12:54 pm

Another thing that strikes me is that events like the Olympics bring with them enormous direct and indirect costs to the host community, and one of the presumed justifications for taking on those costs is that there will be positive economic spinoff effects. Including temporary employment for lots of people. I don't know why the guiding minds of the Olympics think that the arts community should not get to participate in those benefits, such as they are. Sure lots of people might be thrilled to play the venue for the exposure (and I'm not saying I wouldn't be - it might be a blast), but surely its not too much to expect that the money that is getting spread around gets shared with the musicians as well.

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 4 Jul 2012 2:10 pm

The olympic organizing group is an employer of trade and professional people - I'm not talking about the so-called 'amateur' athletes, but everyone who works in the background in a professional capacity. The problem here is that they appear to have set up a general policy not to pay professional musicians as a special case - I honestly doubt they're expecting electricians, plumbers, and other tradesmen to work for free.

If nothing's done to change this, I think the musicians union should cry extreme foul, set up a picket line, and then ask the electricians', plumbers', and other trade unions to refuse to cross those lines. I understand 'jawboning', but it sounds to me like they're getting the shaft and not doing anything about it. This is like expecting the musicians for Broadway shows to play for nothing, while the actors and all the tradespeople get paid normal scale - it's ridiculous, and I am confident the musicians union would scream bloody murder if the latter happened.

Earnest Bovine · Post by **Earnest Bovine** » 4 Jul 2012 8:34 pm

Dave Mudgett wrote:I honestly doubt they're expecting electricians, plumbers, and other tradesmen to work for free.

They would if the plumber were vain enough to work for free thinking "now everyone will love me."

Barry Blackwood · Post by **Barry Blackwood** » 4 Jul 2012 8:55 pm

Why fault the Olympics, if they can get it for nothing, they will.

For starters, this is why...

It appears that the attitude of the Olympic committee is that music has no value and should be free.

admin · Post by **b0b** » 4 Jul 2012 10:31 pm

I've signed it and posted it to my Facebook page.

Walter Stettner · Post by **Walter Stettner** » 5 Jul 2012 3:17 am

Signed it! Thanks for organizing that, Jim.

Kind Regards, Walter

Richard Damron · Post by **Richard Damron** » 5 Jul 2012 5:22 am

Ditto, Jimbeaux.

Daniel Morris · Post by **Daniel Morris** » 5 Jul 2012 10:27 am

Signed.
And who among us hasn't heard the reasoning: why should you be paid good money to do something you enjoy so much, and would do for free anyway?

Larry Tracy · Post by **Larry Tracy** » 5 Jul 2012 10:27 am

Signed it.

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 5 Jul 2012 10:38 am

My thanks to those who have signed it. In just 2 days, we have reached over 150 signatures, but we are going to need this to go VIRAL in order to get an impressive number (in the thousands) to present to the LOCOG. If you have a Facebook or other social media account, I urge you to please put this petition on your page and encourage others to do so as well.

I also sent the link to it, with an explanatory note, to about 100 people in my email contacts list. It would certainly help speed things up, if you would consider doing so as well.

The Olympics opens in just 2 weeks, so time is very short and we have to accelerate the pace.

Thank you, on behalf of all musicians who believe their work should be given respect, and money.

Jim

Geoff Barnes · Post by **Geoff Barnes** » 5 Jul 2012 1:25 pm

Signed and posted to Facebook.

admin · Post by **b0b** » 5 Jul 2012 1:40 pm

If you're on Facebook, you can "Share" it from the Steel Guitar Forum's Facebook page to your own wall or timeline.

http://www.facebook.com/SteelGuitarForum

Greg Cutshaw · Post by **Greg Cutshaw** » 5 Jul 2012 1:49 pm

Signed and shared on FB.

Not sure I believe the voting site's claim that it costs ("hundreds of thousands of dollars per year") to keep their voting site operational. I know there's some programming cost and profit but I am getting 300 GB or more of data transfer a month and terabytes of storage for $8 a month on Bluehost for my web site.

Greg

chas smith · Post by **chas smith** » 5 Jul 2012 2:56 pm

After I signed, I got an immediate request to kick in some money, but the medical establishment and the insurance companies have already cleaned me out.

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 5 Jul 2012 2:57 pm

Well, no harm in askin'. You don't have to pay anything if you don't wish to. (Personally, I haven't yet either...)

Clete Ritta · Post by **Clete Ritta** » 5 Jul 2012 3:10 pm

Signed and shared the FB link.

Clete

admin · Post by **b0b** » 5 Jul 2012 3:24 pm

Greg Cutshaw wrote:Signed and shared on FB.

Not sure I believe the voting site's claim that it costs ("hundreds of thousands of dollars per year") to keep their voting site operational. I know there's some programming cost and profit but I am getting 300 GB or more of data transfer a month and terabytes of storage for $8 a month on Bluehost for my web site.

Greg

If you have two full-time techies and a manager/marketing person, you're already paying well into 6 figures in salaries. Then you start adding the hardware and bandwidth costs. It adds up pretty fast when you're serving pages to a large, mainstream audience.

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 5 Jul 2012 3:32 pm

As an initiator of a petition, I know that they also have staff devoted to communicating with initiators, hosting conference calls on how to make the most of your petition, etc. They also offer to deliver your petition to US government officials for you. They have a program by which I can send a blanket email to all signers of my petition with updates, more info, etc., without revealing to me their email addresses (and vice versa). Of course that's automated but somebody had to program it, etc.

So, I think the $5 donation they request in exchange is pretty reasonable for the service they provide. As an initiator I should be happy to pay that (and probably will, but I want to see how the enrollment goes over the next 3 weeks; if it goes great, I'll probably donate even more to them). But that's just me.

Michael Nemick · Post by **Michael Nemick** » 5 Jul 2012 5:13 pm

Dave Mudgett wrote:The olympic organizing group is an employer of trade and professional people - I'm not talking about the so-called 'amateur' athletes, but everyone who works in the background in a professional capacity. The problem here is that they appear to have set up a general policy not to pay professional musicians as a special case - I honestly doubt they're expecting electricians, plumbers, and other tradesmen to work for free.

If nothing's done to change this, I think the musicians union should cry extreme foul, set up a picket line, and then ask the electricians', plumbers', and other trade unions to refuse to cross those lines. I understand 'jawboning', but it sounds to me like they're getting the shaft and not doing anything about it. This is like expecting the musicians for Broadway shows to play for nothing, while the actors and all the tradespeople get paid normal scale - it's ridiculous, and I am confident the musicians union would scream bloody murder if the latter happened.

I totally agree and if i were not a retired Mechanical and Plumbing contractor and going there I would honor a picket line, Lets see how things get backed up then, (Pun intended)