News

The UNI MEI affiliates of the Americas met in Santiago de Chile, 8 and 9 December for the 6^th PANARTES General Assembly. Delegates discussed the key challenges in the region, adopted a work programme and elected the leadership for the next for years. Horacio Arreceygor, SATSAID - Argentina stepped down as President of PANARTES after leading the region during the last four years. Delegates from the entire Americas region expressed their thanks to Horacio for his commitment and leadership.



The Assembly elected Nascimento Silva, FITERT – Brazil to succeed Horacio as PANARTES President. During the last term Nascimento has served on the PANARTES Executive Committee as General Vice President. He is also a member of the UNI MEI Executive Committee.



Horacio Arreceygor, SATSAID – Argentina; Matt Loeb IATSE – USA and Canada; Patricio Flores – SITATYR, Mexico; Diego Galindez, SICA – Argentina; Ruben Hernandez, APU – Uruguay; Shirley Bahadur, BIGWU – Trinidad and Tobago and David Young, WGA-W – USA were elected Vice-Presidents. James Joyce, NABET-CWA ­– USA and Canada was elected Treasurer.



The Assembly elected the following colleagues as Alternate Vice Presidents: José Perez Nella, SAL – Argentina; Miguel Paniagua, SUTEP – Argentina; Pedro Lazzarini, SINDCINE – Brazil; Daniel Echegorri, ALPU – Uruguay; Margarita Marchi, SINTECI – Chile; David Ruvalcaba, SITATYR – Mexico and Chantal Larouche, FNC – Canada. The new list of the Executive will be made available to affiliates together with all texts adopted by email and on the UNI MEI homepage in the coming days.



Affiliates adopted a series of declarations to give shape to a renewed policy programme with focus on campaigns aiming at organising in the digital global economy, promoting and protecting creativity and diversity and strengthen public values in the creative industries. Affiliates reaffirmed their commitment to organising and campaigns for the respect of trade union rights. PANARTES will also continue to develop the regional cooperation targeting in particular co-production in the film sector and multinational media and entertainment companies. Affiliates from both sub-sectors met prior to the Assembly to identify top priorities and projects to be implemented in the coming years.



“Our key challenges are to get trade union rights fully respected in all areas of the media, entertainment and arts across the Americas. We need to tackle together the changes our members face as a result of globalisation, restructuring of the industries and technological change” PANARTES President Nascimento Silva said. The new leadership will continue to give priority to organising, regulation and building union alliances regionally and within the global structure of UNI and UNI MEI.



Addressing the Assembly after his election Nascimento Silva stressed that “the PANARTES General Assembly was marked by unity among the representatives of various countries and sectors represented by UNI Global Union in the media, entertainment and arts in the Americas. This alignment between the global, regional and sector levels of UNI will strengthen the organisation. We will be working together in mutual respect to address the challenges media and entertainment workers face in the digital global economy”, he concluded.



Raul Requena, Regional Secretary of UNI Americas who attended the Assembly stressed the importance of the sector in the region. Raul presented the Breaking Through project of UNI Americas and highlighted the importance of the sector’s initiative to tackle multinational companies. Raul Requena and Johannes Studinger, Head of UNI MEI both underlined the UNI staff’s commitment to work with the new leadership and all affiliates to implement the Breaking Through agenda and align the region’s and sector’s campaigns and actions.



No time to lose was the mantra and affiliates of PANARTES met with the Latin America group of FIA the following two days after the General Assembly. The action took place in the framework of a joint project of FIA and UNI MEI aiming at promoting capacity building and transnational cooperation of unions in film and TV production in the Americas.



The two organisations agreed to work together during the next three years on three key issues: developing a passport for unions to facilitate the mobility of workers across countries and provide their members access to sister unions, develop a guide on health and safety and promote and protect the intellectual property rights of authors, and performers by improving national legislation and collective agreements.