FIA workshop in Kazakhstan

Kazakh FIA member KCWU kindly hosted this third workshop of FIA’s LO-TCO backed project in the FSU countries (Former Soviet Union). Delegates from KCWU and Kyrgyz affiliate CWUK met from January 17 to 19 with FIA General Secretary Dominick Luquer and special trainers Jimmy Schuman (SFA, France), Thomas Magnussen (DSF, Denmark) and Mikael Waldorff (DSF, Denmark).

The project aimed to provide FIA’s FSU members with information and know-how on Western and liberalised employment conditions for performers. FSU states specificities and switching trends in a globalising world were therefore at the core of each discussion, which saw trainers try and present their own unions’ tools to protect performers’ interests in their national contexts.

Three main topics guided the workshop. A session on communications led participants to reflect on recruiting, mobilising affiliates and raising the union’s profile with third parties. A session on short-term contracts allowed exploring new and emerging employment patterns in FSU countries, and how collective agreements in Western Europe deal with these ‘new’ flexible contracts. A final session on IP rights gave the opportunity to go through the challenges ahead now that the Beijing Treaty has been signed, and to develop some elements of this complex field of law, which can greatly contribute to the revenue performers derive from their work.