Motions Made and Carried

The International Executive Board is a rubber stamp for the wishes of President Tom Lee.

Since 2007 the IEB has been literally unanimous: whatever Tom Lee says, goes. The members of the IEB were ostensibly elected to comment, think, challenge, discuss and most importantly, represent those who elected them. Instead, with the exception of Ray Hair, the IEB has marched in total lockstep with Tom Lee, and represent only him.

If the administration of Tom Lee has achieved anything, it has solidified its efforts to speak with one voice. The IEB joined Tom Lee in its policy of complete avoidance of recording musicians, which resulted in two continuing costly lawsuits.

Two officers in particular provide a good example of what's wrong with the IEB. Harold Bradley and Billy Linneman were roundly ousted from their local offices by their members, and so should in all fairness be "lame ducks" — or better yet, resign. However, they remain in power as Tom Lee's yes-men. These two officers were at the vanguard of Tom Lee's offensive against recording musicians and their representatives. "Innuendo" is too good a term for the flagrantly false statements uttered by these officers, and we must now call them what they are: "lies," and the people who recite them, "liars."

During their failed campaigns, both Bradley and Linneman stuck to Tom Lee's party line, and tried to impugn the integrity of RMA officers. RMA President Phil Ayling has asked for a retraction, but has been ignored (see Letter 1 and Letter 2). Please take care to note the reasonable tone of RMA President Phil Ayling, versus the venom and ignorance of the words of Bradley, Linneman, and Tom Lee.

For years, Tom Lee and the IEB have been lying through their teeth for political gain. They damned the RMA for lawsuits it had nothing to do with. They refused to meet unless the RMA "eliminated inflammatory newspaper articles" it did not publish. They accused RMA officers of forming a competing union based on no evidence at all, lied about it, then dropped the charges with no explanation or retraction.

This is also the IEB that stood with Tom Lee in failing to endorse Barack Obama.

The solution is change for 2010, and that means a whole new IEB. In the coming weeks, I will propose names of candidates whom I think could serve effectively, to be an effective check on the power of Tom Lee, and save this union from the ruin wrought upon it by a rubber-stamp IEB.

Happy Labor Day.