ABSTRACT
From the days of the Lea and Taft-Hartley Acts during Petrillo’s presidency of the musicians’ union, the union’s experience with the law had been a bruising one. In 1983, when the Glasel administration came into office at Local 802, the union had just lost a major “independent contractor” case that the members thought they ought to have won.1 And, since even their successful cases were painfully protracted, it took a lot of frustration to get the union to repair to the courts. In a press release announcing our case against the cabaret laws John Glasel quoted the old line, “I’m fed up, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”2 It was not until Glasel and other union officials finally were persuaded that the Messinger bill was not going to be reported out of committee, much less passed, that we began to work seriously on a lawsuit.
