Over the past five years, UPM 518 has been supporting the Downtown Kingston BIA (DTKBIA) concerts with funding from MPTF, providing 50% of their budget. Each year, the local enters into an agreement with DTKBIA to ensure musicians are paid at scale and receive a pension contribution. Additionally, DTKBIA has covered musicians’ work dues and any temporary membership fees.
However, we’ve found that the agreement hasn’t always been favourable to our musicians. While it was set up to help musicians during the challenging years of COVID, we noticed a trend of more non-union musicians being employed than union musicians.
After discussions with DTKBIA, we’ve decided to make some changes. We will no longer support DTKBIA paying musicians’ work dues or temporary memberships, and we will no longer employ non-union bands over union bands. Instead, we’ve requested that at least 50% of the bands employed be union bands, and that there be variety in their hires. We’ve also asked that all bands be aware of our contribution and acknowledge the support of MPTF and the union.
This change means that more of you may have an opportunity to be hired if you wish to apply. You’ll be paid at a slightly higher rate, but there will be a 5% deduction for work dues, which hasn’t been deducted in the past five years. We hope this will be a fairer way to distribute the funding we’ve been receiving from MPTF to our members.