More pictures are available on the FIA Flickr account here.
The latin american members of FIA and UNI MEI gathered in Buenos-Aires for a 3 day joint capacity building seminar in November 2022. The event was organized as part on ongoing project, funded with the support of the Swedish union ScenOchFilm and Union to Union, aimed at increasing the capacity of union leaders in Latin America to make unions more powerful and sustainable.
After 3 years of virtual meetings only, the Latin-American group of FIA (FIA-LA) finally had the opportunity to meet again in person in Buenos-Aires for a productive and inspiring joint training and strategic planning seminar. Along with colleagues from UNI MEI Panartes, over 50 trade union leaders took part in this regional event.
The Joint event started with a special focus on Argentina. Trade union leaders and government officials shared an insight to current negotiations affecting the working conditions of culture and entertainment professionals in the country. Next up UNI Americas’ organisers made a presentation on union growth in Latin America.
The training continued with an exchange of experiences and capacity building of trade unions in preventing and combating workplace violence and harassment in our sectors, building on the results of the survey conducted during the summer of 2021, on the material developed for the launch of the campaign in the spring of 2022 and good practices gathered since. The second part of this session focussed on the challenges and difficulties of real life with scenarios and role-playing games.
After an introduction to the theme and a reminder of the definitions and legal context of key concepts, participants were invited to work in smaller groups. Participants reported back and the key issues in the scenarios were unpacked collectively, with a particular focus on the legal dimensions.
Also on the Agenda: The impact of multinationals and how the growing presence of these companies and streamers affect labor relations in Latin American countries. Examples portraying the process and content of collective bargaining with major multinationals were presented to initiate a discussion on how FIA, UNI and their member unions can work together to strengthen collective bargaining throughout the region.
The last session focussed on young workers and trade union change with two key questions: what does it mean to give young workers a greater voice in unions and what can unions change to effectively integrate young workers and enable them to pursue their goals as a group.
The Latin-American group of FIA also met separately to discuss issues of common interest and regional strategies for performer unions.
The regional groups issued 3 joint Declarations available for download here under:
