FIM

International Federation of Musicians

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Labour rights

Ireland | Right to collective bargaining restored for freelancers

03.07.2017 Updated on 06.04.2023 Europe, Labour rights, Working relationship

Oireachtas logo

The Irish Parliament restores the right of free­lance work­ers to col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing in an amend­ment to the Competition Act (on 31 May 2017)

On the evening of 31 May, the Irish Parliament adopt­ed the Labour Party pro­posed Competition Amendment Bill 2016, which aims to intro­duce exemp­tions from com­pe­ti­tion law for cer­tain self-​employed workers.

Since a com­pe­ti­tion rul­ing was hand­ed down thir­teen years ago, agree­ments nego­ti­at­ed with artists unions on min­i­mum tar­iffs have been con­sid­ered as breach­es of com­pe­ti­tion law.

To avoid the com­pe­ti­tion law a union has to prove either that its mem­bers are false inde­pen­dent work­ers (in a sub­or­di­nate rela­tion­ship, oblig­ed to fol­low instruc­tions, do not share the same busi­ness risks as their con­trac­tors etc.) […]
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EU | Consultation on a European pillar of social rights

09.01.2017 Updated on 05.05.2018 Europe, Labour rights, Public policies

EAEA logo

FIM, FIA and UNI-​MEI have sub­mit­ted a joint reply to the European Commission’s con­sul­ta­tion on the European Pillar of Social Rights (the con­sul­ta­tion end­ed on 31 December 2016).

This con­tri­bu­tion (in English), which includes ele­ments of reply draft­ed by ETUC, also address­es in detail aspects that are spe­cif­ic to our sec­tor, bas­ing itself in par­tic­u­lar on work car­ried out with­in the scope of the European project on atyp­i­cal work­ers which was con­clud­ed in September 2016.

Africa | Union reshaping underway in Zimbabwe?

07.10.2016 Updated on 13.05.2018 Africa, Intellectual property, Labour rights

FIM workshop Zimbabwe

With the TUMAI union, FIM organ­ised a union train­ing work­shop in Harare (Zimbabwe) from 21 to 24 September 2016, with the sup­port of Union To Union. Two local musi­cians’ unions took part: TUMAI (recent­ly a FIM mem­ber once more) and ZIMU (cre­at­ed in 2014).

Unfortunately, TUMAI has had to come to terms with the sud­den demise of its General Secretary, George Emmanuel, who was active­ly engaged in prepar­ing this meeting.

The work­shop focused on union organ­i­sa­tion and action. The cur­rent back­drop is par­tic­u­lar­ly dif­fi­cult:
• artists are not backed by pub­lic author­i­ties
• relat­ed rights in copy­right are not enshrined in law
• levies due by broad­cast­ers are not paid or are paid at a ridicu­lous­ly low rate
• the lev­el of pira­cy is such that the country’s largest record com­pa­ny, Gramma, can­not sell off its CDs even at the price of US$1 since pirates are flood­ing the mar­ket with com­pi­la­tions at 50 cents! […]
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Europe | Atypical work in the arts, entertainment and media sector

14.09.2016 Updated on 13.05.2018 Decent work, Europe, Fundamental rights, Labour rights, Precarious work, Working relationship

Atypical work

On 8 and 9 September 2016, the final con­fer­ence took place in Brussels of the joint FIM, FIA, UNI-​MEI and EFJ project focus­ing on the future of work and atyp­i­cal work­ing in the arts, enter­tain­ment and media sec­tor. It was held in the European Parliament and the premis­es of the European Economic and Social Committee.

Besides rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the four organ­is­ing fed­er­a­tions, the con­fer­ence wel­comed European and nation­al par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the European Commission, the International Labour Office (ILO) and the European Trade Unions Confederation (ETUC), as well as jurists, spe­cialised in social law.

Detailed pro­gramme and list of speakers

Following on four the­mat­ic work­shops, the con­fer­ence was an oppor­tu­ni­ty for pre­sen­ta­tions and opin­ions of both legal and polit­i­cal nature from numer­ous speak­ers. […]
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India | Risk prevention in Bollywood

22.07.2016 Updated on 13.05.2018 Asia, Health and Safety, International Arts and Entertainment Alliance, International trade union co-operation, Labour rights

Stage on fire in Mumbai

On 27 – 29 June 2016, FIM, FIA and UNI-​MEI organ­ised a work­shop main­ly ded­i­cat­ed to risk pre­ven­tion in the movie indus­try in Bollywood, with­in the scope of their joint project backed by Union to Union.

Participants (tech­ni­cians, actors and musi­cians), from the Federation of cin­e­ma employ­ees in west­ern India (FWICE) and the Musicians’ Federation of India (MFI), described the envi­ron­ment as tense. On the one hand, acci­dents on film sets are occur­ring one after the oth­er at an alarm­ing rate. On the oth­er hand, dis­cus­sions between union organ­i­sa­tions and pro­duc­ers to update the Memorandum of Understanding in lieu of a col­lec­tive agree­ment have been blocked for sev­er­al months, thus pre­vent­ing the con­clu­sion of a deal on risk pre­ven­tion. […]
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France | The employer of Belarusian musicians sentenced for not respecting the applicable collective agreement

15.04.2016 Updated on 13.05.2018 Labour rights, Social dialogue, Working relationship

Lac des cygnes | Minsk Bolchoi

In the spring of 2014, the FranceConcert com­pa­ny organ­ised a six-​week tour in France for a pro­duc­tion of Swan Lake by the Orchestra and Bolshoi Opera Ballet of Minsk.

During the tour, musi­cians received their usu­al wages (€350 a month on aver­age) as well as a cash allowance of €40 a day. They were sub­ject to par­tic­u­lar­ly dif­fi­cult work­ing con­di­tions, per­form­ing up to 13 days con­sec­u­tive­ly with­out a sin­gle day of rest. At the same time, FranceConcert sold up to 5,000 places per con­cert at around €50 per unit.

With the help of the French musi­cians’ union (SNAM-​CGT), the musi­cians went to court. A deci­sion in sum­ma­ry pro­ceed­ings gave them an adjust­ment of salary on the basis of the col­lec­tive agree­ment, on aver­age €1,300 for each musi­cian. […]
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France | The profession of performer undermined by the government

04.04.2016 Updated on 13.05.2018 Cultural policies, International solidarity, Labour rights, Live performance, Public policies, Public services, Status of the artist, Working relationship

Assemblée Nationale

Indignation among pro­fes­sion­al per­form­ing artists after the adop­tion at sec­ond read­ing of the “Creation” bill pre­sent­ed by the French gov­ern­ment which makes pro­vi­sion for all com­pa­nies in the enter­tain­ment busi­ness, whether sub­sidised or not, to be able to resort to using unpaid artists.

Under the guise of fos­ter­ing ama­teur prac­tices, the French gov­ern­ment is organ­is­ing the legal­i­sa­tion of negat­ing the trade of per­former, by sug­gest­ing that the work of a musi­cian or actor does not need to be remunerated.

This is a his­toric regres­sion, in a coun­try which has a rep­u­ta­tion for treat­ing its artists worthi­ly. It is also a severe step back­wards with regard to arti­cle III.3 of the Recommendation con­cern­ing the Status of the Artist, adopt­ed unan­i­mous­ly in 1980 by Member States of Unesco (includ­ing France) and which stip­u­lates that “Member States […] take all nec­es­sary steps to stim­u­late artis­tic cre­ativ­i­ty and the flow­er­ing of tal­ent, in par­tic­u­lar by adopt­ing mea­sures to secure greater free­dom for artists, with­out which they can­not ful­fil their mis­sion, and to improve their sta­tus by acknowl­edg­ing their right to enjoy the fruits of their work.” […]
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Cameroon | The complaint lodged by FIM and SYCAMU at ILO has made the government give way

30.03.2016 Updated on 18.01.2021 Africa, Fundamental rights, ILO, International solidarity, Labour rights

SYCAMU

Via order of 12 February 2016, the Cameroon gov­ern­ment raised the sus­pen­sion order on SYCAMU. This order was the sub­ject of the com­plaint lodged joint­ly by SYCAMU and FIM to the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association.

The deci­sion inter­vened very quick­ly after the gov­ern­ment received noti­fi­ca­tion from ILO of the com­plaint against it, a com­plaint it judged suf­fi­cient­ly severe and rel­e­vant not to go any fur­ther down the road.

The deci­sion of the Cameroon gov­ern­ment is a relief for FIM and SYCAMU, which can now resume its activ­i­ties serv­ing the country’s music artists.

It is also a demon­stra­tion that our deter­mi­na­tion and action as an inter­na­tion­al fed­er­a­tion are essen­tial for pro­tect­ing the rights of the work­ers we represent.

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