FIA workshop in Kazakhstan, January 2013
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.
EuroFIA Project 2010-2011: “Transition Schemes for Dancers: Developing Career Transition and Life-long Learning Schemes to Offer Long-Term Career Opportunities to Dancers after Retirement from Performing”
EuroFIA Project 2010-2011: “Transition Schemes for Dancers: Developing Career Transition and Life-long Learning Schemes to Offer Long-Term Career Opportunities to Dancers after Retirement from Performing”
After having successfully created the Dance Passport Scheme, facilitating union support for dancers when they are working in other countries, EuroFIA decided to dedicate a whole new project to the dancers’ needs by focusing on the opportunities available for them as they move away from performing, in recognition of the fact that in their thirties and forties, dancers may see work opportunities dwindle and be confronted with the end of their performing careers. In addition, working conditions are changing everywhere and although long-term contracts in national ballets, operas or companies, including a life-long pension, used to be the norm, dancers now generally don’t enjoy such security and tend to work on a freelance basis or combined basis. Even in countries where there is still a pension scheme, there is an increasing reluctance to extend it to new dancers, who are often rather employed on short term contracts. Thus dancers across Europe present a great variety of employment statuses making it a challenge to tailor a scheme to their needs.
Aims of this project:
The project aimed to fully map the needs of FIA member unions in this area and gain a better understanding of the career trajectories of dancers in Europe and how transition schemes could maximise these. Drawing on the experience of those members who have experience of such schemes, the project identified the key elements for a successful transition scheme and looked at how these can be built in to existing training and life-long learning schemes. It was also a forum for discussion and debate on this issue, particularly through the project conference in Berlin in 2011. Among other things, the handbook aims specifically to provide FIA members with the knowledge and information to pursue the development of such schemes at the national level, where they consider it relevant. The EuroFIA dancers working group has expressed its willingness to be involved in consultations at national level where such schemes are envisaged in order to feed in the experience and findings emerging from this project.
The Dancers’ Career Transitions Handbook is available for download in English, French and Spanish (and shortly in Russian!) in our website’s Research section. You can download the programme from the Berlin Project conference below.
This project is supported by the European Commission.
Programme in English Programme in German Programme in French
EuroFIA Project 2009-2010 : “Engendering Change: Strategies to Combat Gender Stereotypes and Promote Equal Opportunities for Performers in Theatre, Film and Television in Europe”
Origin of this project
This Euro-FIA project followed on from the 2008 research project, “Changing gender portrayal: Promoting employment opportunities for women in the performing arts”. It also deals with the issue of gender equality, focusing on the portrayal of women in film, television and theatre in Europe and on equal opportunities for women performers. The research conclusions of our previous project highlighted several important problems for actresses such as shorter careers; lower incomes and smaller number and variety of roles, all of which led women performers to see their gender as disadvantageous in the world of the performing arts.
The research report “Age, Gender and Performer Employment in Europe” constitutes a first and unique resource on gender portrayal and its impact on the employment opportunities of performers in Europe. It is a valuable contribution to the Commission’s overall work on gender equality, equal work for equal pay and anti-discrimination. The positive reactions and responses we have received from both the European Parliament and the Council of Europe highlight that our report can have a real strategic use in decision-making and advocating for change. You can download a copy in the research section of our website..
Aims for this project
FIA successfully acquired European Commission funding for this project, which ended in July 2010 and which aimed to move forward from research to action. The "Engendering Change" project thus built on the foundations laid by the first one and sought to identify clear strategic actions to engender change across the EU. The focus was on coming up with strategies, both at the level of performers’ unions themselves and at the level of political advocacy, at national and EU level. These strategies, examples and good practices are intended to empower and support performers’ unions to undertake action on this issue. Equally they can serve as a blueprint providing examples of possible effective political action that decision-makers can pursue. They also highlight ways in which the industry can work from within to change gender portrayal and do away with stereotyping. More precisely, our main objectives with this project were:
- To capitalise and build upon the foundations laid in the first EuroFIA project on Gender Portrayal and use the momentum and network that have been developed to have a real impact on this issue;
- To share and exchange good practice on combating gender stereotypes and improving representation of women in film, television and theatre in Europe;
- To draw together these ideas and good practices in order to come up with targeted strategic recommendations for performers’ unions, policy-makers and stakeholders in the industry on how to take action on gender portrayal and equal opportunities. The aim was to work from concrete examples of both hard (such as, for example, quotas and funding criteria) and soft approaches (such as, for example, developing cultural projects or applying a gender check list approach in cultural institutions) gleaned from across the EU and to analyse what works and how. These have been brought together in the final project publication, which is a "Handbook of Good Practices" which serves to both inform and empower different relevant actors on how to develop effective strategic approaches to gender equality in their work and structures;
- To develop and renew the commitment to gender equality in the workers’ organisations that are members of EuroFIA through the development and adoption of a FIA charter on gender to which its members should adhere;
- To feedback the work and findings into the work carried out at European level, through the sectoral social dialogue committees on live performance and audiovisual and through contact and cooperation with the Commission and the Parliament in their work in this area;
- To continue to develop strategic partnerships with other civil society actors active in this area.
Means to achieve this project: regional seminars and final conference
In order to carry out all these goals we decided to organize this work through five different regional seminars, bringing together representatives from the sector and relevant political and civil society actors, as well as performers themselves. Our project consultant Richard Polacek attended these five meetings to draw out and feedback the good practice identified, the recommendations made and any key ideas and suggestions developed, so that these can be drawn together in the project handbook.
The regional seminars were in many ways the vital core of the project. They were the tool in order to find the good practice and work out the practical approaches which the project aimed to gather and highlight. The regional seminars were structured around a shared discussion note and took in a range of experts and stakeholders. These included representatives of TV channels, politicians active on gender equality, theatre directors, performers, union representatives, producers, casting directors, screenwriters etc. They yielded a wealth of ideas, examples, projects and good practices to be brought together in the project handbook. They were structured in different ways: sometimes opening with one or several expert presentations to stimulate discussion, sometimes taking the form of an open exchange of views on each theme, led by the chair. In each case, the regional seminar ended with a recapping of the main points noted and elements to be carried forward for the Handbook.
The calendar for the seminars was as follows:
| Date | Location | Organising Members |
November 06, 2009 | Marseilles (France) | SFA - Syndicat Français des Artistes-Interprètes (France), |
November 25, 2009 | Brussels (Belgium) | ACOD Cultuur (Belgium), |
December 06/07, 2009 | Bled (Slovenia) | GLOSA (Slovenia), |
December 14, 2009 | Stockholm (Sweden) | TF – Teaterförbundet (Sweden), |
| 1st February 2010 | Edinburgh (UK) | Equity (UK), Irish Equity Group (Ireland) |
Final Conference:
This event took place in two parts. The first was a one-day session in the European Parliament on the 8th of June, which was hosted by MEP Eva Britt-Svensson, chair of the FEMM committee, and a number of other interested MEPs: Mary Honeyball of the S&D Group; Marie-Christine Vergiat of the GUE Group and Cecilia Wikstrom of the ALDE Group. Mary Honeyball also provided an important link to the Culture Committee of the European Parliament. MEP Pronsias de Rossa also supported the event and was in attendance at the regional seminar in Edinburgh. The organisation of the event provided an important opportunity for FIA to raise awareness in the European Parliament about the project and its findings and to engage MEPs on this issue.
The project was also supported by the Spanish Presidency of the EU, who publicised it and included it in their official calendar. It was closely in line with the aims of the Presidency and the Ministry of Culture in Spain was present to share some of the interesting practices developed in this area in Spain, and included in the Handbook.The aim of the conference was to highlight and showcase some of the good practice gathered in the course of the 5 seminars, as well as to raise political visibility and awareness on the issue of equal opportunities and gender portrayal in film, television and theatre more generally. The event brought together a range of participants: the EuroFIA member unions, delegations from each of the regional seminars, relevant European stakeholders including European sectoral social partners, as well as decision-makers and representatives of the institutions at European level. The session in the Parliament was also a good opportunity to offer participants an indepth overview of the planned Handbook; its shape and content, as well as its use. It was a very useful chance to get feedback and input on the Handbook before proceeding towards its finalisation in the immediate aftermath of the conference.
The second session of the conference took place on the 9th of June and aimed to focus primarily on the role of performers unions on this issue and the use to be made of the handbook in their daily work. There was a lively discussion sparked by focussing on the relevant good practice examples drawn from the handbook. This in turn led into a detailed discussion and exchange on the FIA Gender Charter and responsibility and commitment which it lays down for FIA member unions.
You can also find the new "FIA Charter for Gender Equality and Equal Opportunities" below in English, French and Spanish.
The Project Handbook:
The project handbook was produced by the project consultant Richard Polacek, in close consultation with the project steering committee. It aims to set out the practical tools and approaches to really engender change in the sector and have a concrete impact on equal opportunities and gender portrayal. It draws together the findings from the regional seminars, as well as the final conference. The structure of the handbook emerged very naturally from the discussions at the seminars, with a clear pattern of certain types of good practice emerging across the different regions, so that a coherent description and classification of the different approaches could be developed.
The reactions to the Handbook both at the conference and following it have been overwhelmingly positive. The practical approach – focussing on real examples of how to make change happen – has been greatly appreciated by FIA members and other stakeholders in the industry. It empowers FIA and its membership to really advocate for change using the Handbook as a tool and a way of engaging the discussion with decision-makers, social partners and other relevant partners.
The handbook was professionally translated into Spanish and French and laid out by a professional designer, with a view to ensuring it is as widely readable and user-friendly as possible. You can visit the dedicated research section of the website in order to read more about the Handbook and download a print-ready copy in English, French or Spanish. Visit the Research Section.
This project is supported by the European Commission
FIA Charter for Gender Equality and Equal Opportunities Charte de la FIA pour l’Egalité des Genres et l’Egalité des Chances Carta de la FIA de Paridad de Género e Igualdad de Oportunidades
“Changing gender portrayal: Promoting employment opportunities for women in the performing arts”
Introduction to the Project:
This EuroFIA project ran from September '07 to December '08. It received funding from the European Commission in 2007, within the overall context of the European Year of Equal Opportunities for all. The portrayal of women and men in theatre, television and film have a significant impact not only on gender image and perception by the public, but also on the employment opportunities of performers. It is a fact that women are less represented than men in ALL media. A comparative European study of male and female participation in television programmes carried out in Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden (in the resources section below) showed clear signs of unequal and stereotypical gender representation. For this project, it was decided to address the discrimination issue from the perspective of older female performers, whose employment opportunities are limited because of their gender and age. The European Commission acknowledged that these are grounds for discrimination that should be addressed at European level. Performers’ trade unions have a crucial role in combating gender stereotypes, through close and on-going cooperation with all media and entertainment institutions. The results of such cooperation should contribute to presenting a realistic picture of the skills and potential of women in modern society and avoid further portrayal of women in a degrading, offensive or non-realistic manner, in theatre and television, which are all medias with powerful educational vocation.
The main activities of the project were the organisation of two key events and the undertaking of an ambitious piece of research on gender portrayal and employment opportunities for performers in Europe.
Project Research - Questionnaire, Interviews, Report:
The research ran from March 2008 when the questionnaire was launched, to October 2008 when the final reserach report was completed. The research report was drawn up on the basis of the responses received.
Details are available in the Research Section.
Project Events:
The two key events of the project were the launching conference and the final conference. The launching conference took place in April 2008 in Riga, Latvia. The final conference took place in London in the Drill Hall Theatre on the 15-16 September 2008. Details regarding the conferences, as well as speeches, programmes etc. are available in the Meeting Section.
Resource Section on Gender Portrayal in the Performing Arts:
Within the framework of this European project, FIA has begun gathering existing resources on this topic together and has received contributions from several European countries. FIA will continue to bring these together in its Gender Equality Policy section and to make them available as a valuable resource for all members working on this issue. Your contributions to this section are also most welcome. All documents and reports on this theme are available for download in the Gender Equality Section.
This project is supported by the European Commission
European project on the enlarged EU - 2005
Strengthening performers’ organisations in the new EU member States and candidate countries, enabling their integration in the European Social Dialogue in the audiovisual and live performance sector was a project set off by the European group of FIA, with the support of the European Commission.
The first part of the project aimed at informing FIA’s affiliates in the new EU member States about the significance and the impact of the EU instruments and policies of relevance to our sector, as well as raising their awareness about existing financial support programmes. A practical documentation pack was released during a first seminar organised in Nicosia on February 2005, including a list and short description of the relevant EU funding programmes, with links to related web pages. This data also includes an account of the major EU legal instruments that are related to the entertainment sector.
The second part of the project focused on the organisational and managerial training of performers’ unions, as well as on collective bargaining best practices. This training was delivered during a seminar held in Prague - Czech Republic – in September 2005, and was based on the experience of FIA members from the old EU member States.
A short overview of major sections of collective agreements in theatre, television and cinema production - as well as model language – provided adequate support during the seminar.
Project's documentation pack Overview of main elements of a collective agreement