It was a great pleasure for the FIA Secretariat to get the chance to welcome FIA President, Gabrielle Carteris, to the FIA Office in Brussels for the first time, early in April. With professional engagements bringing Gabrielle to Europe, there was a welcome opportunity for some time together at FIA’s headquarters to reflect on work underway in the Federation and to look forward to this year’s World Congress in Birmingham in November. Brussels was bathed in Spring sunshine for the visit and this was a beautiful backdrop to some memorable meet and greets with contacts and allies in the European Trade Union Movement and in the European Institutions.
Accompanied by the Secretary General and Deputy Secretary General, Gabrielle met first with colleagues in DG Connect, the Directorate General of the European Commission responsible for Communications Networks, Content and Technology, located a short distance from the FIA office. Meeting with representatives from the MEDIA Unit and the Copyright Unit, discussions naturally centred around the some of the key challenges and concerns FIA is engaged on. Gabrielle shared some reflections on the experience of the SAG-AFTRA strike of 2023 and what it revealed about the possibility of real standard setting on AI usage and licensing, including for small scale projects, as well as the strong potential for collective bargaining to be a tool in framing AI deployment and how social conditionality may help drive this forward. Also discussed was the return on streaming revenues for performers and whether the Copyright Directive has delivered appropriate and proportionate remuneration in practice and what progress is still needed. Gabrielle also took the opportunity to reiterate the importance of the Beijing Treaty to performers in the Audiovisual sector globally and the need for progress towards ratification in both Europe and the US.
Gabrielle was also delighted to have the opportunity to meet with Trade Union leaders in Brussels. As an Executive Board member of the AFL-CIO, she believes strongly in the importance of cross-sectoral trade union cooperation and strength. She met with Uni Europa Regional Secretary Oliver Röthig and expressed her gratitude on behalf of the whole Federation for their collegial cooperation and support through the years. They exchanged views on AI and its ramifications across the different sectors, as well as the key importance of collective bargaining in the trade union response to this issue. This theme was also central to discussions at Gabrielle’s meeting with ETUC Secretary General Esther Lynch and Confederal Secretary Isabelle Schoenman at the ETUC’s new headquarters in central Brussels. Gabrielle urged the trade union movement to be aware, prepared and informed regarding the rapid technological advances changing the face of many industries so as to be well placed to engage in bargaining to frame and regulate this change to the benefit of workers.
The final meeting of the densely packed visit was in the Commission’s historic flagship building, the Berlaymont, where Gabrielle was received by the Chef de Cabinet of the Executive Vice-President Roxana Mînzatu. This meeting was a valuable opportunity to discuss the upcoming work on quality jobs in the EU and the role of the social partners in this process. Gabrielle emphasised the vital importance of raising collective bargaining coverage as the best tool for resilience and decent labour conditions in a time of industrial change and the potential of social conditionality in public procurement to be a lever for expanding this coverage. She recalled the work done by the Commission in relation to the living and working conditions of artists and cultural workers, and the need for this momentum to continue also within the quality jobs framework. The need for a robust GDPR framework was also discussed, in particular where personal identifiable data such as voices and likeness are scraped and deployed by AI without consent.
Gabrielle then took her leave of Brussels. We look forward to future visits from our FIA elected representatives and our members to Brussels, to help us to continue these important discussions with our trade union allies and our political contacts. In the meantime, we continue to work towards the next important gathering of all of FIA’s members, together with our Executive and Presidium at the 23rd FIA World Congress, hosted by Equity UK in Birmingham in November of this year.
