Origins

      After several earlier attempts at organization, the AFM was founded in Indianapolis in 1896 following an invitation from Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), to organize and charter a musicians' trade union. Delegates from various musician organizations, representing some 3,000 musicians, created a charter stating that "any musician who receives pay for his musical services shall be considered a professional musician." The union added the phrase "of the United States and Canada" to its title in 1900. At the St. Louis World's Fair four years later, the AFM discouraged the hiring of foreign bands. It also achieved the first minimum wage scale for traveling orchestras.

     The economic impact of World War I and the growing popularity of recorded music led to epic high unemployment of musicians. Prohibition was closing beer halls where musicians had worked, and by the late 1920s and early 1930s, sound-on­-film technology had displaced theater orchestras. The 22,000 musicians providing in-theater musical background for silent movies were replaced with only a few hundred jobs for musicians recording sound tracks. As might be expected, the New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles AFM locals were the largest during this period, with about 25 percent of the total membership in the three cities.

AFM and Radio

     AFM members initially looked to radio as a godsend, assuming that it would provide for more employment opportunities for members. And indeed larger stations did create or hire individual musicians or even orchestras. But stations in smaller markets relied on recordings or shared (networked) broadcasts of national orchestras to fill their airtime, so music was getting wider circulation, but musicians usually were not.

     Development of electrical transcription around 1930 (and sound quality improvements in records sold to consumers) made the problem worse, as it was now easier for stations to produce recorded programs that sounded nearly as good as live performances. After many years of indecision, in 1937 AFM President James Petrillo originated the "standby" approach, pressuring Chicago stations to employ AFM members if recorded music was played, as backup musicians or even as "platter turners" in place of regular on-air personnel. This "featherbedding" tactic (hiring more employees than needed) was adopted by the union and expanded to other areas of the nation in the years before the U.S. entry into World War II. That the standby process originated in Chicago ​​is central to the AFM story, for Chicago became the base of strong AFM leadership for several decades.

     A one time trumpet player ("If I was a good trumpet player I wouldn't be here. I got desperate. I hadda look for a job. I went into the union business," New York Times, 14 June 1956), James Caesar Petrillo joined the AFM in 1917 from a rival group. He became head of the Chicago AFM local in 1922 and kept that post for over four decades, in part due to the lack of secret ballot elections and members' fear of him. In 1928 Pet­rillo had demanded that radio stations in the Chicago market pay musicians for performing on the air, which ironically forced many to use recorded music. The "standby" approach followed wherein musicians were retained but often not used by broadcasters.

     By 1940 Petrillo had been elected national AFM president, a post he would hold until 1958, all the while retaining his local power base (and title) with the Chicago local. He quickly expanded the union's standby tactic, requiring stations across the country that played records (as most did by that time) to hire AFM members as standby players. With strong AFM pressure, by 1944 the practice had spread across the nation, employing some 2,000 musicians.

     Petrillo and the union drew negative public attention, how­ ever, by demanding that the NBC radio broadcast from the National Music Camp at lnterlochen, Michigan, be canceled in 1942. (Some of the camp's final performances each season had traditionally been broadcast.) A year later, the camp's leader, Joseph E. Maddy, lost his AFM membership because he was playing with non-members. The camp proved unable to get another broadcast outlet for its concerts, though ironically most could not have joined the union in any case because they were too young.

     Petrillo did not seem to be concerned with public opinion. The height of his "public be damned" mode came in August 1942, when he pulled AFM members from all recording sessions with the big record companies until they agreed to his pension and related demands. The resulting 27-month ban continued until late 1944 despite orders by the War Labor Board, pleas from President Roosevelt, and loud complaints in Congress that the AFM leader was not being supportive of the war effort. He stood his ground, and in November 1944, the last of the major recording companies (RCA Victor and Columbia) gave in to AFM demands. AFM gained the payment of 1.5-2 cents from each record sold; the money went into what became a huge performance trust fund. (The fund still helps to support popular free concerts in what is now the Petrillo Band Shell in Grant Park in Chicago.) Growth of the recording business after the war and the increasing number of jukeboxes prompted the AFM to threaten another recording musicians strike in 1948, but the parties involved settled, agreeing to continue paying AFM fees to the performance fund.

     Concerned about the developing new media and what impact they might have on musicians, Petrillo in 1945 banned AFM members from performing on television or on FM dual broadcasts with AM unless standby musicians were hired. These bans were lifted only after stations again agreed to his demands for payments to musicians who were often not used at all. He also banned foreign music broadcasts except those from Canada, whose players were often AFM members. Although some of the membership grumbled, Petrillo and his supporters were all-powerful in the union and had sway. Indeed, his supporters reveled in the poor press their president achieved, publishing a booklet of negative cartoons depicting the feisty leader.

Lea Act

     But pressure from broadcasters who felt blackmailed into accepting employees they did not need led Congress to take action limiting the union's power. In 1946 Clarence Lea, a Republican from California, introduced legislation to revise the Communications Act by adding a revised Section 506 concerning "coercive practices affecting broadcasting." Passed by overwhelming margins in the House and Senate and quickly signed by President Harry Truman, the Lea Act banned pressure on licensees to employ or make payments for "any person or persons in excess of the number of employees needed by such licensee to perform actual services," or "to pay or agree to pay more than once for services performed." Pre-existing contracts were allowed to stand, but renewals would have to agree with provisions of the new law.

     In his usual pugnacious approach, Petrillo appealed the new legislation, using WAAF in Chicago as a test case, and promised a nationwide strike against radio if the Lea Act was found unconstitutional. The Supreme Court, however, held the act to be constitutional and thus enforceable, and the AFM lost some of its power. Petrillo remained president of the AFM for another decade, but the union gradually slipped out of news headlines.