News

Some 60 new members of the UNI-MEI affiliated Creative Workers’ Union of South Africa (CWUSA) are the early result of a joint project of CWUSA, TEME (the Finnish theatre and filmworkers’ federation), UNI-MEI and SASK (the Finnish labour solidarity foundation). Jim Wilson, UNI-MEI director, and Martin Spence, the person responsible for freelance film workers in the British union BECTU, met with organisers and new affiliates in Johannesburg and Cape Town, 19-21 May. (The British have a strong interest in Cape Town in particular, as so much production from the UK has been shifting there in recent years.) Along with Tom Dimakatso, CWUSA’s coordinator for the project, they also met with leaders of the main South African producers’ associations. Dimakatso participated in the UNI organisers’ seminar at the UNI headquarters in Nyon in mid-June; he led a group of union members the end of the month setting up a union organising booth at the prestigious Grahamstown Arts Festival.