2012 Newsmaker John Smith

Fearless Defender of Musicians' Rights

To U.K. musicians, John Smith is a hero. As both general secretary of the Musicians’ Union (which just elected him to another five-year term) and president of the Federation of Entertainment Unions, he has spent the year fighting for musicians’ rights on several fronts. His top priority is to improve their pay, in an environment of ruthless funding cuts. He knows their lot only too well. As a working musician he was principal tuba in the orchestra of English National Opera for almost 20 years. He points out that 76 percent of British musicians now earn less than $48,400 a year and it is his five-year objective to do something about it.

His next challenge is the airlines. Since only a minority of them serving the U.K.is British, he has escalated the dialog to an international level, launching a petition for the European Union to legislate for fair treatment of musicians traveling by plane, following a similar move in the U.S. The petition has more than 42,000 signatures and is currently before the European Commissioner.

Smith carries a velvet hammer. An avuncular, approachable man, he is well respected in the business, even as an outspoken campaigner for his flock’s causes. He is a regular delegate at the annual conference of the Association of British Orchestras, and given that orchestra managers are not obvious best friends with union chiefs, he seems to generate genuine affection.

The 2012 Olympics threw a number of issues in his path, first when the organizing committee declared that opening ceremony artists should mime to a pre-recorded track—a missed opportunity for promoting live music, said Smith—then more seriously when musicians began to get requests from the organizers to play unpaid at related events. In the end, the London Symphony Orchestra mimed to a track recorded six weeks earlier, and reports of “play for nothing” requests continued to leak out. But the MU’s involvement did put musicians' causes in the public consciousness.

He’s also battling changes to tax regulations for self-employed musicians that would mean a hike in contributions to state benefits. And he’s deeply involved in the Lost Arts project, which is recording and publicizing the effects of funding cuts. Whether it will yield tangible results as the government draws up ever tighter spending plans remains to be seen.

One campaign that bore fruit was the Live Music Act, which overturned legislation that effectively prevented many musicians performing in restaurants and pubs without paying costly licensing fees. Smith said at the time: “Live music can be hugely beneficial for pubs—pubs without featured music being three times more likely to close than pubs with featured music.” As a man who is always comfortable with a pint of beer in his hand, he probably took pleasure in helping to bring about a change that was not just to musicians’ benefit.

Next in this Category