FERA, FSE and UNI MEI held the fourth online workshop “Common priorities for transnational aspects of collective bargaining” of their joint project “Strengthening Collective Bargaining for Audiovisual Creators” on November 24, 2022.

The workshop was introduced and moderated by FSE Executive Officer David Kavanagh and FERA CEO Pauline Durand-Vialle, gathering participants from the FERA and FSE networks across Europe.

The meeting kicked off with a state of play of the transposition of the 2019 Copyright Directive’s provisions on transparency and fair remuneration in authors’ and performers’ contracts presented by Ula Furgal (CREATe, University of Glasgow), highlighting that, despite the Directive’s June 2021 transposition deadline, only 18 out of 27 EU Member States have implemented the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market so far.

Case studies then presented a selection of national frameworks for collective bargaining on fair remuneration and transparency, from the importance of the wording in legislation to secure the ability to bargain collectively in Belgium by Barbara Persyn (De Scenariste Gilde), a challenging negotiation process with streamers in Denmark by Kasper Halkier (Create Denmark), to incentives to collective agreements in the French law transposing the 2019 Copyright Directive by Guillame Prieur (SACD).

Participants discussed possible coordinated actions to stimulate collective negotiations at the national level, and heard from Ellen Stutzman (Writers Guild of America West) on upcoming collective negotiations in the US.

This workshop offered FERA and FSE members a platform to get information on the state of play of the 2019 Copyright Directive implementation and practical tips to initiate and develop related collective negotiations and agreements at national level while exploring potential alliances between directors’ and screenwriters’ professional organisations.

Source: FERA