Strengthening Collective Bargaining for Screenwriters and Directors
The Federation of European Screen Directors (FERA), the Federation of Screenwriters in Europe (FSE), and the Media, Entertainment & Arts sector of UNI Global Union (UNI MEI) set up a programme to build capacity among audiovisual authors’ guilds and professional organizations in Europe to bargain collectively, to coordinate this bargaining at EU level, and to promote employment opportunities with decent working conditions and fair remuneration for audiovisual creators.
This programme, co-funded by the European Union, ran from March 2021 to June 2023. The results are now available on the website authorsbargaining.eu.
Context
By addressing negotiation imbalances and explicitly encouraging collective bargaining by authors and performers with producers, broadcasters and streamers, the 2019 EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (CDSM) offers prospects for the strengthening of contract terms and for fair remuneration for authors for the use of their works and performances.
The objective of the programme is to enable audiovisual authors to bring the volume of collective agreements with employers to a level where social dialogue and collective bargaining become the industry norm, and to facilitate transparency and improvement of terms and conditions of employment, including remuneration, across the EU member states.
Activities
The programme included online workshops for audiovisual authors’ representative organizations, topical webinars, a final seminar and EU-level dialogue meetings between FERA, FSE, UNI MEI and producers’ and broadcasters’ organizations focused on the implementation of fair remuneration provisions in the 2019 Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market.
Based on these in-depth exchanges, common resources were developed to support screenwriters and director’s professional organizations as they expand their collective bargaining practice.
A TOOLKIT on collective bargaining
This document summarizes key topics discussed during the project duration, with recommendations in form of toolkits on each topic, in order to provide reference documentation and advice to screenwriters’ and directors’ professional organizations.
DATABASES
Several comparative tools are now available to provide reference information on fair remuneration to screenwriters’ and directors’ professional organizations.
1. 2019 Copyright Directive database
An overview in English comparing national provisions on fair remuneration (transparency obligation, contractual readjustment mechanism and dispute resolution) of the 2019 CDSM Directive in 10 EU member states (Belgium, Croatia, Czechia, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden).
2. CBAs index
An index of national existing collective agreements translated in English.
3. European Directors and Screenwriters Contracts Database
A collaborative online tool offering the possibility to compare the terms and provisions of more than 45 anonymous individual authors’ contracts and collective agreements from 30 European countries, translated in English, broken into key provisions and classified in several categories.
The access to these three online databases is limited to FERA and FSE member organizations.
The toolkit is available here in pdf format.