Singers, Union Find Harmony

Soul singer Sam Moore is still on the road, trying to make money to pay his medical bills.

But that is about to change for Moore and other artists who contend that their pension funds cheated them of health and retirement benefits.

Moore and others, including the estates of Motown diva Mary Wells, Jackie Wilson and Curtis Mayfield, won a bitter fight Wednesday when a class-action lawsuit filed against an arm of their union was settled for $8.4 million.

“This truly is a victory for the recording artists,” said Joyce Moore, whose 66-year-old husband tours each year to make ends meet and just returned from engagements in Britain. “This is a great day for those of us who have been fighting this battle for the past nine years.”

The settlement comes at a time when the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists, the union representing the singers and musicians who sign with major labels, is close to reaching a groundbreaking accord with the industry that would safeguard benefits for future recording acts.

Sources for AFTRA and the Recording Industry Assn. of America, the trade group representing the industry’s five largest companies, say a three-year pact is likely to be announced next week that will provide full health-care coverage for all artists on major label rosters. The proposal also would require labels to increase contributions to artist pensions by about 10%, sources say.

Greg Hessinger, the national executive director of AFTRA and an outspoken advocate for the artists, applauded Wednesday’s settlement.

“Not only have the previous offensive provisions been deleted,” Hessinger said in a statement, “But new artist-friendly arbitration procedures have been established.”

That new agreement will be too late, however, for Moore and others like the late Wells, who had to check into the charity ward of County-USC Medical Center 12 years ago when she was destitute and stricken with throat cancer. She died in 1992.

Wells’ estate joined Moore and others in a 1993 suit accusing the pension arm of AFTRA of failing to protect fading artists who were left impoverished long after their talents had helped reap money for the music industry.

The suit alleged that record firms in the 1950s and ‘60s did not accurately report royalty earnings to AFTRA Health and Retirement Funds and failed to make required contributions to pension accounts. The suit also alleged that AFTRA fund trustees neglected to police record-label contributions to artists’ accounts and failed to sue violators.

Over the last decade, more than a dozen artists joined the legal battle. But reaching a settlement was not easy. One problem was that the AFTRA fund is a separate entity from the union, and organizations disagreed on how to settle the case.

In March, trustees for the AFTRA fund, which has nearly $2 billion in assets, proposed a settlement to resolve the case for 20,000 artists, most of whom would have received only a couple hundred dollars each under the agreement.

Under that proposal, trustees offered the 15 named plaintiffs about $100,000 each but would have deprived every recording artist of the right to file a claim to recover benefits. That sparked an outcry from the artist community, leading dozens of current music stars to oppose it.

Under the new arrangement, the 15 named plaintiffs will be paid $25,000, but unlike previous offers, they retain the right to file claims and challenge benefit determinations in court.

In addition, the settlement forces the AFTRA fund to streamline its claims process and establish a fund to cover the cost of successful benefit claims in the future. The fund also must hire an ombudsman and launch an outreach campaign to help musicians file claims.

Artist managers, however, voiced criticism regarding one part of the agreement, which awarded lawyers representing music acts $2.6 million in fees from the settlement.