FIM

By Ananay Aguilar

On 10 – 12 July 2018, FIM held a nation­al work­shop in San José, Costa Rica, spon­sored by Union To Union and backed by SMF. The event sought to sup­port the Costa Rican trade union of music work­ers (UTM) on cur­rent pri­or­i­ty areas such as
– The imple­men­ta­tion at nation­al lev­el of UNESCO’s Recommendation con­cern­ing the sta­tus of the artist;
– The pro­mo­tion of gen­der equal­i­ty in the music sector;
– The right to col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing /​to strike /​to health and safety;
– The recog­ni­tion of free­lance musi­cians as workers;
– The mon­eti­sa­tion of works and per­for­mances in the dig­i­tal envi­ron­ment, and
– Copyright and relat­ed rights in inter­na­tion­al treaties /​in nation­al law.

FIM was rep­re­sent­ed by its General Secretary Benoît Machuel, its Vice-​President Deborah Cheyne and its Regional Coordinator for Latin America Ananay Aguilar. UTM attend­ed with near­ly twen­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tives includ­ing President Sergio Dávila, Technical Organisation Secretary Esteban Monge, region­al lead­ers and mem­bers of the board and man­age­ment. UTM was also joined by Luis Carlos Amador, for­mer President of the union of the National Symphonic Orchestra (CSANEP-​OSN).

Expert speak­ers and guests included
– Minister of Culture of Costa Rica Sylvie Durán;
– Ministry of Culture offi­cial Alejandra Hernández;
– UNESCO’s Director for Central America Pilar Alvarez-​Laso and mem­bers of her team;
– Local ILO spe­cial­ists on gen­der equal­i­ty and social dia­logue, respec­tive­ly María Arteta and Fernando García;
– The General Secretary of the local TUC (ANEP) Albino Vargas;
– President of the Costa Rican col­lec­tive man­age­ment organ­i­sa­tion of authors (ACAM) Edín Solís;
– President of the Costa Rican col­lec­tive man­age­ment organ­i­sa­tion of per­form­ers (AIE) Esteban Monge, and
– pro­mo­tion and mar­ket­ing expert Fernando Guerrero.

UTM mem­bers learned about the his­to­ry of the trade union move­ment in Costa Rica and about the actu­al and poten­tial impact of UNESCO’s Recommendation con­cern­ing the Status of the Artist (1980) and Convention for the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (2005). The talks gen­er­at­ed much inter­est and dis­cus­sion amongst the par­tic­i­pants and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet and build bridges with the var­i­ous organ­i­sa­tions represented.

On the last day, we had the priv­i­lege to share an entire ses­sion with the Minister of Culture Sylvie Durán, with whom we dis­cussed pos­si­ble ini­tia­tives towards the full imple­men­ta­tion of the right of com­mu­ni­ca­tion to the pub­lic (in the sense of art. 15, WPPT). The final ses­sion was used to draft an action plan based on the UNESCO Recommendation and attend­ing to the union’s most urgent needs.

Musical high­lights includ­ed a pre­sen­ta­tion by singer-​songwriter Carol Bermúdez and Edín Solís, as well as more impro­vised per­for­mances by Olman Briceño, Berenice Jiménez, Carlos Guzmán and Esteban Monge.