FIM

On 18 January 2016, FIM and the Cameroon Musicians’ Union (SYCAMU) offi­cial­ly filed a com­plaint with the International Labour Organization’s Committee on Freedom of Association for breach by the Cameroon gov­ern­ment of ILO’s Convention 87.

Last September, FIM sent a let­ter to the President of the Republic of Cameroon ask­ing him to oppose the deci­sion of his Prime Minister, Mr Philémon Yang, to order the Labour Minister to impose a ban on SYCAMU, which was reproached with being in breach of its own rules by organ­is­ing a meet­ing aimed at cre­at­ing a col­lect­ing soci­ety, since SOCAM (pre­vi­ous­ly in charge of man­ag­ing copy­right and relat­ed rights for music) had ceased its activity.

FIM’s let­ter went unan­swered but, in the mean­time, some SYCAMU exec­u­tives received unac­cept­able attempts at intim­i­da­tion. Consequently, FIM and SYCAMU decid­ed to bring the issue before ILO’s Committee on Freedom of Association, which has to adju­di­cate at the lat­est one year after pub­li­ca­tion of the com­plaint, which should take place in March 2016.

We hope that this process will bring the Cameroon gov­ern­ment round to review­ing its posi­tion and show more clear-​sightedness in deci­sions which affect musi­cians and their union.