FIM

A FIM nation­al work­shop took place in Accra with­in the scope of the region­al pro­gramme for union train­ing backed by the Swedish con­fed­er­a­tion LO-​TCO, with the sup­port and par­tic­i­pa­tion of the Swedish Musicians’ Union (SMF). The main objec­tive was to fol­low up rec­om­men­da­tions adopt­ed in 2009 dur­ing a pre­vi­ous workshop:
 — Policy pri­or­i­ties defined by the union;
 — Gender equal­i­ty in the sec­tor of music and union authorities;
 — Good man­age­ment, trans­paren­cy and finan­cial responsibility;
 — Social dia­logue and col­lec­tive bargaining;
 — Intellectual prop­er­ty and col­lec­tive management;
 — Networks and fund-raising;
 — Services to mem­bers and communication.

In par­tic­u­lar, the work­shop was attend­ed by a rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the Ministry of Culture, an ILO rep­re­sen­ta­tive and sev­er­al rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Ghana Trade Union Congress (TUC).

The work­shop revealed the qual­i­ty of work car­ried out by the union (MUSIGA) under the man­age­ment of for­mer pres­i­dent Diana Hopeson and cur­rent pres­i­dent, Bice O. Kuffour. Priority actions were addressed in a seri­ous man­ner, some­times suc­cess­ful­ly, in par­tic­u­lar when it came to the mem­ber­ship cam­paign or the devel­op­ment of coop­er­a­tion between MUSIGA and the TUC. Other items require cur­rent efforts to be con­tin­ued, such as the set­ting up of a col­lect­ing bar­gain­ing infrastructure.

Collective man­age­ment of relat­ed rights has just been entrust­ed to a new­ly accred­it­ed soci­ety, but the pro­posed rules for this struc­ture raise the prob­lem of the nature and real­i­ty of con­trol over its oper­a­tional man­age­ment. In this respect, MUSIGA intends to insist on the prin­ci­ples of good governance.

The fact that the work­shop was attend­ed by the serv­ing pres­i­dent and two of its pre­vi­ous ones tes­ti­fies to MUSIGA’s healthy demo­c­ra­t­ic status.