FIM

International Federation of Musicians

Subscribe to FIM Newsletter

Precarious work

EU | Union representation for freelances

19.06.2023 Updated on 29.11.2023 Europe, Labour rights, Precarious work, Public policies, Social dialogue, Social protection, Status of the artist, Working relationship

FIM delegation at Madrid conferenceOn the 8 and 9 June 2023 the final con­fer­ence was held in Madrid for the European project (car­ried out by FIM, FIA, UNI-​MEI and EFJ) relat­ing to union organ­i­sa­tion and col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing for free­lances in the per­form­ing arts and media sec­tors. Hosted by Spanish cen­tral trades union bod­ies CC.OO. and UGT, the con­fer­ence was pre­ced­ed on 7 June by the final meet­ing of a legal work­ing group, bring­ing togeth­er, around the four fed­er­a­tions, uni­ver­si­ty aca­d­e­mics, researchers and lawyers spe­cial­is­ing in labour law and com­pe­ti­tion law.

The project is based on three pillars:

1. Union organ­i­sa­tion. Training activ­i­ties were pro­vid­ed by spe­cial­ists Becky Wright and Tara O’Dowd, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with mem­ber unions of the four fed­er­a­tions. […]
Read full post 

EU | Initiatives in favour of self-​employed workers

14.12.2021 Updated on 22.03.2022 Fundamental rights, Precarious work, Social dialogue, Social protection, Working relationship

EU Commission logo

On 9 December 2021, the European Commission announced three pro­pos­als aimed at re-​adjusting pow­er bal­ance between pre­car­i­ous work­ers and com­pa­nies using their ser­vices. Two of them are worth spe­cial attention:

1. A pro­posed direc­tive con­cern­ing the improve­ment of work­ing con­di­tions for those work­ing on platforms

The pro­posed direc­tive pro­vides cri­te­ria for deter­min­ing the pro­fes­sion­al sta­tus of those work­ing on dig­i­tal plat­forms. If these cri­te­ria are ful­filled, work­ers will be assumed to be employ­ees, there­by ben­e­fit­ting from the social guar­an­tees linked to such status.

In addi­tion, it cre­ates new rights for both salaried and self-​employed work­ers
 — by enhanc­ing trans­paren­cy in the use of algo­rithms by dig­i­tal plat­forms
 — by impos­ing human mon­i­tor­ing of work­ing con­di­tions
 — by mak­ing it pos­si­ble to con­test auto­mat­ed deci­sions. […]
Read full post 

ILO | Working paper on social protection in the CCS

20.04.2021 Updated on 02.07.2021 Fundamental rights, ILO, Labour rights, Precarious work, Status of the artist

ILO Working paper on social protection

First pub­lished on the ILO website

This Working Paper is based on the ILO Centenary Declaration for the Future of Work, 2019, which calls on the ILO to direct its efforts to “devel­op­ing and enhanc­ing social pro­tec­tion sys­tems, which are ade­quate, sus­tain­able and adapt­ed to devel­op­ments in the world of work.”

In par­tic­u­lar, the paper reviews pol­i­cy and legal frame­works in select­ed coun­tries that have pur­sued spe­cif­ic solu­tions to extend social secu­ri­ty in the cre­ative and cul­ture sec­tor, in order to iden­ti­fy entry points and mech­a­nisms for expand­ing cov­er­age. Policy options ensur­ing the ade­qua­cy and the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of such sys­tems are dis­cussed, tak­ing into account par­tic­u­lar employ­ment cir­cum­stances in the sec­tor, such as fluc­tu­at­ing employ­ment sta­tus, irreg­u­lar incomes, inter­mit­tent nature of work, and geo­graph­ic mobil­i­ty. […]
Read full post 

EU | Status and working conditions in the creative sector

14.12.2020 Updated on 23.03.2022 Covid-19, Decent work, Europe, Freedom of expression, Labour rights, Precarious work, Social dialogue, Status of the artist, Working relationship

EU Commission logo

The DG EAC of the European Commission is pub­lish­ing a study on work­ers in the European cre­ative sector

According to the Commission, this study, com­mis­sioned from the European Expert Network on Culture and Audiovisual (EENCA), comes with­in the scope of objec­tives for the New European Agenda for Culture adopt­ed in 2018. Among the aims is help­ing the Member States ensure fair remu­ner­a­tion for work­ers in the cre­ative sec­tor through social dia­logue and the imple­men­ta­tion of an ecosys­tem favourable to such work­ers. Efforts in this direc­tion are cur­rent­ly being made by cer­tain states with­in the scope of the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) with regard to sta­tus and work­ing con­di­tions for artists and cul­tur­al and cre­ative pro­fes­sion­als. […]
Read full post 

Handbook on trade union organising

05.07.2020 Updated on 03.11.2020 Precarious work, Social dialogue, Working relationship

Handbook on union organising

This Handbook on Trade Union Organising is the out­come of a joint project by FIM, FIA, EURO-​MEI and the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ). The project, enti­tled “Reaching the Full Potential of Social Dialogue for Atypical Workers” focused on the chal­lenge of union rep­re­sen­ta­tion of work­ers in the Media, Arts and Entertainment sec­tor, who are free­lance, self-​employed or oth­er­wise atyp­i­cal workers.

The project was fund­ed via the European Commission’s DG Employment and Social Affairs bud­get line for Information and Training Measures for Workers’ Organisations. It ran through­out 2018 and 2019, with a con­clud­ing event held in Dublin in Feb. 2020.

The two main strands of the project focused first­ly, on organ­is­ing and recruit­ing atyp­i­cal work­ers to the trade unions in the sec­tor and sec­ond­ly, on address­ing the legal obsta­cles that may arise when seek­ing to col­lec­tive­ly bar­gain on their behalf. […]
Read full post 

IAEA recommendations re. the management of the Covid-​19 crisis

10.04.2020 Updated on 07.07.2020 Covid-19, Health and Safety, Precarious work, Public policies

IAEA logo

The speed with which the covid-​19 pan­dem­ic has spread across the world has led many gov­ern­ments to place excep­tion­al con­straints on their pop­u­la­tions, to try and lim­it its propagation.

The ini­tial mea­sures aimed pri­mar­i­ly at lim­it­ing large gath­er­ings, includ­ing con­certs, shows and oth­er cul­tur­al events. Shortly after, venues receiv­ing the gen­er­al pub­lic were closed. These mea­sures caused an imme­di­ate col­lapse of income in the Arts and Entertainment sec­tor. Having been pro­found­ly impact­ed from the out­set of this his­toric cri­sis, the whole of the sec­tor is now at a stand­still. A con­sid­er­able num­ber of work­ers are with­out income and the sur­vival of many com­pa­nies is uncer­tain. […]
Read full post 

Europe | Unionizing so-​called “atypical” workers

10.12.2018 Updated on 22.03.2022 Europe, Fundamental rights, Labour rights, Precarious work, Working relationship

Rotterdam forum on the unionisation of atypical workers

Forum on union­iza­tion of atyp­i­cal work­ers in the media and enter­tain­ment sec­tors (Rotterdam, 30 – 31 October 2018)

On 30 and 31 October 2018 in Rotterdam, FIM, FIA, UNI-​MEI and EFJ held a forum devot­ed to union­iza­tion of so-​called “atyp­i­cal” work­ers attend­ed by some fifty union rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Europe. The term “atyp­i­cal” is today in cur­rent use and refers to the work­ing rela­tion­ship of pro­fes­sion­als who, in our trades, are gen­er­al­ly called “free­lance”. The pre­car­i­ous­ness which char­ac­ter­izes these forms of work results in par­tic­u­lar from European rules in the field of com­pe­ti­tion law. Unions are try­ing to devel­op strate­gies to rep­re­sent these pro­fes­sion­als as effi­cient­ly as pos­si­ble. […]
Read full post 

Senegal | AMS is changing everything for the music sector

28.05.2018 Africa, Decent work, Gender equality, International trade union co-operation, Labour rights, Precarious work, Public policies, Social dialogue, Status of the artist, Working relationship

Senegal workshop (May 2018)

In keep­ing with the meet­ing held in March 2017, FIM and AMS organ­ised a new work­shop in Dakar from 14 to 16 May 2018, with­in the scope of the region­al pro­gramme for union train­ing backed by Swedish con­fed­er­a­tion Union to Union. On this occa­sion, vis­its to the Ministry of Labour, employ­ers and ILO helped define a coher­ent strat­e­gy towards con­clud­ing col­lec­tive agree­ments and mak­ing head­way along gen­der equal­i­ty lines.

The work­shop, which opened with a speech from the Minister of Culture, was also attend­ed by a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from UNESCO’s Dakar Office and a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from ILO-​ACTRAV. The Ministry of Labour had del­e­gat­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives for the whole dura­tion of the work­shop. […]
Read full post 

1 2
MENU