Monday, November 16, 2009
Crickets / Music / Politics / Clout City Musicians Need a Different Kind of Benefit
Posted by Miles Raymer on 11.16.09 at 02:57 PM
An op-ed by Bloodshot Records cofounder Nan Warsaw and Future of Music Coalition project coordinator Alex Maiolo in yesterday's Chicago Tribune entitled "End the Need for Benefit Concerts" raises yet again the issue of American musicians without health insurance. The fact that few musicians, from weekend giggers to major-label performers, have adequate coverage is nothing new, but between the ongoing debate over health-care reform and Scotland Yard Gospel Choir's recent van crash it's a good time to bring it up once again.
This state of affairs is due in part to a technicality—even musicians who have deals with big labels are almost all contract workers hired on an album-by-album or session-by-session basis, and therefore aren't covered by their employers' insurance. Warsaw and Maiolo's piece doesn't present musicians as somehow more entitled to health insurance than anybody else making do without it, but rather puts them in the same category as freelancers and the self-employed. Furthermore it argues that the lack of coverage isn't just unfair but downright un-American—employer-based coverage in particular can stifle entrepreneurship by preventing people with bright ideas from heading out on their own.
Here's one passage that jumped out at me:
The modern American work force is mobile and flexible. People are less likely these days to stick with the same employer through retirement, and many of today's job opportunities are contract-based. But our health insurance coverage remains largely employer based, leaving freelancers, artists and tiny startups with almost no affordable options for coverage. While musicians frequently rally to each other's aid, who organizes the benefit show for the uninsured teacher's aide? Who prints T-shirts for the ailing Web coder?
Read the rest here.
Comments (1)
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This is absolutely why we should support the Perform Act. It will finally get those musicians, in addition to the featured artists, paid for their radio airplay. We're never going to see single-payer universal health care in the country. The best we can hope for is that it will someday either be cheap enough for musicians to afford or musicians will make enough money to afford it. Support the Perform Act and enable musicians to buy the insurance they need! http://www.musicfirstcoalition.org
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