Minimum wage for gigging musicians?

[silenced]

US House of Representatives recently passed the first minimum wage increase in about 10 years.

However, as far as I know, the minimum wage has never applied to gigging musicians!

Musicians trek out every night of the week with expensive equipment, years of practice to hone their native talents, to showcase original works - sometimes at no pay or for only pennies per hour.

Do you think bands are being exploited by club owners? Do you think every member of the band should earn at least the minimum wage for every performance (including setup and put-away, if not travel)? For example, a band of 6 people plays a club, spends 3 hours between setup and put-away - for a total of 18 hours. At say $8/hour, that would be $144 minimum price for each band that played.

How do you think club owners would respond to a minimum wage for musicians? Would they hire just as many bands? If they cut out some music, which bands would they cut?

If you don't think a minimum wage for musicians makes sense, why would we have a minimum wage for some people but not musicians? Maybe none of it makes sense...

[GearJunkie]

how would you like to fill out a W2 everytime you play some POS dive bar?

[warmowski]

Originally Posted by silenced

Do you think bands are being exploited by club owners? .

Yes. I also think the sun rises in the east and water flows downhill.

That club is in a sense a market for work. But it's a black market, off the books and under the table. Owners' interests ensure this will stay the same - no owner will ever think twice about passing over a club band who inisist on a federal minimum wage. Upon hearing that, the owner would 1) chuckle and 2) reach into the very next CD on the pile and book that band instead.

Supply big. Demand small. The imbalance means legal wage levels
don't apply. It's a different deal with burgerflippers, though. With these organizations, demand is much bigger. Wages then matter more and laws are not ignored quite as much.

This doesn't in my mind take anybody off the hook for behaving badly, exploiting artists, etc. I merely point out that the big imbalance between supply and demand in a club is never going to take a backseat to any other law.

-r

[dagosto]

Technically, a band is its own business. When a band plays a club it is entering in a contract with the club owner. Most times it is a deffered payment contract based on the amount of people that came to see that band.

Contractors get paid whatever they agree to get paid, minimum wage or less. The reason so many bands play for little or nothing is because not only do we get to play, which is fun, but we also can get buzz. Unfortunately, for many talented and dedicated people, this still never pans out to even the minimum wage.

The way we can work this in our favor is when we start to really think of our band as an actual business. Let's say that you play once a month (or even once a year) at the same bar and everytime you personally get anywhere from 10-100 dollars a night. Make sure you get a reciept of payment from the club ownership. Now, your business has income.

In effect, now everything you spend money on for this business is an investment. Gas to get to the club, the strings on your guitar, heads on drums, cables, tubes, the instruments and amp themselves, any work you had done on your guitar, the burrito you bought across the street, the clothes you bought for onstage, all of your studio equipment, the plane tickets to Heathrow where you played at a pub (promotional tour), etc. All of those things are investments. Subtract all of that from the money you made and you will probably find a significant loss. As long as you keep track of these things you can file them as a loss on your taxes. This can mean a significant tax refund.

Now I am no accountant. I do recommend consulting one so you know how to stay on the up and up with your deductions. I assume that the consultation would also be a write off though.

[dolivas]

there should be some kind of musician's union which is hella easy to join and provide tax info to and get tax payed and wages payed to. that might aleviate such things as musicians getting payed little.

however I believe standardized waging isn't realistic because each band differs in terms of net worth and productivity so for clubs it wouldn't seem smart to pay the same a crappy band as opposed to a kick ass band and they have to deal with losings customers or gaining some depending on the band as well

[mikegee]

Originally Posted by dolivas

there should be some kind of musician's union which is hella easy to join and provide tax info to and get tax payed and wages payed to. that might aleviate such things as musicians getting payed little.

however I believe standardized waging isn't realistic because each band differs in terms of net worth and productivity so for clubs it wouldn't seem smart to pay the same a crappy band as opposed to a kick ass band and they have to deal with losings customers or gaining some depending on the band as well

yea, but the club owners would still just book non union bands...