The Recording Artists Coalition's fight against the seven-year contract statute and the music business' losing battle against downloading may get the headlines. But to thousands of musicians, there's an urgent issue that could prove the catalyst for organizing into a cohesive body: health insurance.
That's the belief of Jenny Toomey, an independent musician and executive director of the Washington-based Future of Music Coalition.
"A few years ago, the National Endowment for the Arts tried to substantiate how badly artists were living," she says. "They looked at incomes of nine different categories of artists."
"Dancers were lowest and musicians just above," she continues. "Median income for musicians was $30,000 a year, and those are people working two jobs to meet household expenses.
"They're cash-poor and time-poor, so it's not surprising that they're not easy to organize. But activism teaches that you start with what people need, and musicians need health insurance."
To that end, Toomey--who in addition to being an artist (her double-CD "Antidote" was released recently) ran the Simple Machines label for eight years--is spearheading a project to research musicians' insurance needs.
She's conducting a survey to get the ball rolling. Interested musicians can participate in the confidential venture via the coalition's Web site at www.futureofmusic.org/research/healthsurvey.cfm.
More than 2,500 musicians have already filled out the survey, but Toomey is hoping many more will, especially those without insurance coverage. The coalition is also working with a clinical psychologist researching health issues associated with musicians--such as hearing loss, substance abuse and the effects of grueling tour schedules.
Toomey acknowledges that insurance is available for many musicians via two unions, the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists, with most record companies contracted to pay first-year fees for all signed artists, and the American Federation of Musicians.
But many other musicians don't qualify for membership in either union, while others choose not to join.
"I have always told my musician clients when they sign a deal to go join the musicians' union so they can get insurance," says Michael Ackerman, a Los Angeles attorney who represents independent and major-label acts as well as independent record companies. "Few have joined. I think a lot of them aren't really aware of it or think that the union isn't for them."
