FIM

International Federation of Musicians

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Working relationship

Romania | Self-​employed workers victims of anti-​union law

29.11.2023 Updated on 24.01.2024 Europe, Fundamental rights, Labour rights, Social dialogue, Working relationship

FAIR-Mediasind logoHow far will Romania go with its anti-​union pol­i­cy? The ques­tion is asked as the Romanian Parliament has just adopt­ed, on November 16, 2023, a law reserv­ing for asso­ci­a­tions (not unions) the right to con­clude col­lec­tive agree­ments for self-​employed workers.

Until 2022, the law did not allow inde­pen­dent work­ers to be rep­re­sent­ed col­lec­tive­ly to defend their pro­fes­sion­al inter­ests. Faced with pres­sure exert­ed in par­tic­u­lar by the European Commission, the Romanian gov­ern­ment was forced to reverse this clear vio­la­tion of the right to free­dom of association.

This same gov­ern­ment then rushed to issue an order spec­i­fy­ing the nature of the organ­i­sa­tions engaged in social dia­logue on behalf of the self-​employed. […]
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An analysis of orchestral workers’ challenges, by Heather Kurzbauer

29.11.2023 Updated on 13.12.2023 Labour rights, Orchestras, Working relationship

Heather Kurzbauer's bookEmployment and Vulnerabilities in the World of Orchestral Musicians is a pro­found­ly knowl­edge­able and provoca­tive book penned by a ver­sa­tile schol­ar who com­bines the roles of law pro­fes­sor, music jour­nal­ist, and orches­tral vio­lin­ist. It presents the first major legal study to focus on labor rela­tions and the insti­tu­tion­al dynam­ics at play with­in orchestras.

The state sub­si­dies and phil­an­thropy that tra­di­tion­al­ly allowed orches­tras to flour­ish have great­ly dimin­ished due to recent finan­cial crises and the COVID-​19 pan­dem­ic. As in oth­er fields affect­ed by the pre­car­i­ous labor arrange­ments preva­lent in the world of work today, the employ­ees and free­lancers — in this case, the musi­cians them­selves — suf­fer the most. […]
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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. […]
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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. […]
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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. […]
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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. […]
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EU | Unionisation and collective bargaining for freelancers

02.03.2020 Updated on 07.07.2020 Europe, Fundamental rights, Labour rights, Social dialogue, Working relationship

Dublin conference on freelance workers

In Dublin, on 11 and 12 February 2020, FIM, FIA, UNI-​MEI and EFJ –with the sup­port of SIPTU– organ­ised the final con­fer­ence of the European project on union­i­sa­tion and col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing for free­lance work­ers in the enter­tain­ment and media sectors.

Opened by a speech from Patricia King, General Secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), the con­fer­ence brought togeth­er over one hun­dred par­tic­i­pants from European Union coun­tries or can­di­dates to acces­sion. The debates includ­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives from unions, the European Commission, the OECD, ILO, ETUC and gov­ern­ments, as well as uni­ver­si­ty aca­d­e­mics, researchers and lawyers spe­cial­is­ing in labour law. […]
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Dominican Republic | National union training workshop

04.11.2019 Updated on 07.07.2020 Gender equality, International trade union co-operation, Latin America, Social dialogue, Status of the artist, Working relationship

FIM workshop | Santo Domingo

Dominican musi­cians are busy cre­at­ing a union which, in its rules, embod­ies good gov­er­nance, trans­paren­cy and gen­der equality.

FIM is pro­vid­ing tech­ni­cal sup­port for this process through back­ing from Swedish unions Union To Union and SMF. In par­tic­u­lar, this sup­port has tak­en the form of a union train­ing work­shop, organ­ised in Santo Domingo from 15 to 17 October 2019, run by Benoît Machuel (FIM General Secretary), Nathaly Ossa (FIM region­al coor­di­na­tor for Latin America) and John Acosta (President of AFM local 47). We are par­tic­u­lar­ly grate­ful to John Acosta for his con­tri­bu­tion to this work­shop, and to his union.

For the occa­sion, ONAM had brought togeth­er an assem­bly made up of an equal pro­por­tion of men and women. […]
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