News

Union representatives from around Europe met in Brussels on 20-21 January to discuss the issue of work-life balance. UNI MEI, together with FIM, FIA and EFJ, organised the seminar in the framework of a European project on work-life balance in the audiovisual and live performance sectors. The seminar was the final event of the project which focused on examining the situation in eight European countries, these being France, Germany, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK. The seminar raised interest more widely, and several other countries took part as well.

The results of the research on the eight focus countries were presented and discussed, which lead to a lively exchange on good practices in the different countries. Initiatives such as encouraging fathers to work shorter hours and arrangements regarding night-time child care to accommodate the requirements of the sectors were presented. In a further session ETUC and BusinessEurope presented their joint work in cross-sectoral European social dialogue, especially their initiatives related to work-life balance issues. They are currently building a toolkit on gender equality and have revised their agreement on parental leave, which increases the length of parental leave and stretches the coverage of the agreement to atypical workers, among other things. In a training session the participants worked on how to include work-life balance in collective bargaining negotiations. Several challenges were identified, such as the high percentage of freelancers in the sector in all represented countries, which makes collective representation difficult. However, many solutions and ideas were discovered as well, such as good tips on how to build an effective bargaining team.

All participants agreed the topic of work-life balance to be an important one. A joint document, which will consist of common principles and recommendations for the sector in order to promote work-life balance, will be drafted as a result of the seminar. This document will in part aid future work on this topic at national and European level.