Symposium on thinking the
future from a labor perspective
Kino Kultura, Skopje, November
29-30, 2019
The symposium on thinking the future from a labor perspective
«Precarious in capitalist culture – Should we continue living like this?»,
organized by Faculty of things that
can’t be learned (FR~U), North Macedonia in partnership with Lokomotiva – Centre for New Initiatives in
Arts and Culture and Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung
Southeast Europe, gathered several actors from the region and across Europe
to discuss the labor relations of freelance cultural workers. The
symposium focused on the topic of precarious conditions that workers are facing
in today’s capitalist world in order to exchange experiences, discuss existing
models and share strategies for labor organization in culture and art
and concerning possibilities of transnational organization.
The participants of the
symposium started from the perspective
that, when it comes to labor rights, cultural
workers are in a particularly desperate condition, because their work often is
not regarded as labor and is not valorized as such. The exploitation
and marginalization of cultural work, as well as the overall lack of
understanding of the emancipatory potential of arts and culture, is rarely
addressed as an issue in need of systemic change. For decades now, neoliberal
austerity measures push artists and cultural workers into short-term contracts
or freelance relations. Often unpaid, they do not even earn a living wage, and
most of them live in a cycle of debt and poverty. Unequal and
precarious labor conditions are also evident in other sectors in
North Macedonia and the region. In the transition to post-socialism,
Yugoslavia’s big factories were dispersed into hundreds of private companies
that took advantage of cheap labor in the race for profit in a strong
rivalry with their competitors. The unchallenged neoliberal discourse
penetrated society and labor relations changed, union activities have
been oppressed and labor legislation has been neutralized. All this
led to the neglect of labor rights and living wages. The state
institutions lack systematic procedures and political resolutions that would
foster emancipatory culture and improve the labor rights of
precarious cultural workers and all workers in general.
In this context, the symposium
«Precarious in capitalist culture – Should we continue living like this?»
reflected on how precarious cultural workers can organize to struggle for
better working conditions and presented artistic and cultural practices and strategies that can support the struggle for labor rights
and make emancipatory social movements stronger in the future. The conclusion
was that there exists a variety of valid forms of struggle and organization,
such as protests, participation in the elaboration of new laws and regulations
concerning culture and labor rights in coalition with the civil
sector and freelance workers, collective agreements and organization in trade
unions. Several examples of artistic and cultural practice were presented that
helped to strengthen the ties between workers in different sectors in order to
improve their situation. The overall conclusion was that there are many «art
worlds», but that the most successful strategies are based on solidarity
between precarious cultural workers and workers of all fields of labor.
The public part of the
symposium started in the evening, the same day as the workshops, on 29th of
November (Day of the Republic) that was celebrated in former socialist
Yugoslavia as the celebration of the re-establishment of Yugoslavia on the
second conference of the Anti-Fascist
Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) in Jajce in 1943,
as well as the proclamation of the socialist Yugoslavia on the same date in
1945. This date symbolically reminded us on the fact that cultural workers in
Yugoslavia had more rights than artists and cultural workers nowadays,
especially when we think about the Law for cultural workers from 1982 that was
annulled after the disintegration of Yugoslavia.
After Ivana Vaseva from
FR~U, North Macedonia, Krunoslav Stojaković and Vladan Jeremić from
RLS SEE have presented the main idea and program of the symposium, Corina
L. Apostol from Tallinn Art
Hall and ArtLeaks,
Estonia/Romania gave a lecture. She presented from a historical perspective how
artist groups from around the world sought alliances to various degrees with
members of the organized Left, in order to frame the concept of the «art
worker» under which members of the artistic community mobilized
in different context and used different strategies, from artistic interventions
to direct actions. Then the symposium continued with the presentation of Ivana
Vaseva and Violeta Kachakova from Lokomotiva, North Macedonia,
about the condition of freelance cultural workers in North Macedonia, about
their collaboration with the Ministry of culture on the new Law for public
interest in culture and the regulation for monthly benefits for artists for
health insurance and retirement fund, and about their future activities
concerning the Law of work relations and collective agreement. They also called
upon better collaboration with other stakeholders on the improvements of the
rights of freelancers and the civil sector and suggested possible ways of
cooperation and unification.
The same day the symposium
started early morning with the Workers Inquiry workshop that explored working
conditions of artists in the Macedonian context, which was led by Bojana
Piškur and Djordje Balmazović. In the second half of the day, the
workshop titled «Advocacy of cultural workers for labor rights»
with Tjaša Pureber was held. On the first workshop the meaning of the
Worker’s inquiry by Marx was discussed, its importance today was stressed and
already produced booklets based on similar workshops in Madrid and Belgrade
were presented. The participants Elena Gjorgjevska, Biljana
Dimitrova, Angela Saveska, Ivana Samandova and Zorica
Zafirovska discussed possible ways of producing the inquiry in Skopje,
including a booklet, poster, social network platform or sticker.
The work between the participants continued the next day in a form of
a more open discussion between the audience, mentors and workshop participants
in order to clarify different ambiguities and receive feedback. The work among
the workshop participants continues in December when, under the guidance by the
artist Oliver Musovik, they will produce the final result of the worker’s
inquiry workshop.
The same participants were
part of the second workshop where they learnt about different mechanisms and
tactics that Slovenian freelance cultural workers and the civil sector used in
order to fight for their rights. This way, the participants were «equipped»
with various strategies that they can employ in the process of improvement of
their worker’s rights.
The first panel of the second day titled «Precarious in capitalist culture» was moderated by Biljana Tanurovska – Kjulavkovski from Lokomotiva, North Macedonia and included Antonia Alampi from Savvy Contemporary, Germany and iLiana Fokianaki from State of Concept Athens, Greece. They presented their platform Future Climates pointing out the critical and precarious conditions of individual workers and small-scale organizations of contemporary art and culture and stressed the responsibility of larger institutions in regards to this condition. It was concluded that the culture of silence needs to be broken in order to start changing the situation. Corina L. Apostol from Tallinn Art Hall and ArtLeaks and Vladan Jeremić from RLS SEE/ArtLeaks presented the ArtLeaks platform that was formed as a response to the abuse of the art worker’s professional integrity and the open infraction of their labor rights. They also presented printed copies of the ArtLeaks Gazette.
The second panel titled «Precarious in deindustrialized societies» was moderated by Filip Jovanovski from FR~U, North Macedonia and was opened by Karla Crnčević, dramaturge and film worker from Croatia that presented the initiative «Enough with the cuts» from Zagreb. Similar to the actions that are taken in Macedonia, this initiative through protests but also suggestions to the Law of culture and other regulations tries to outdo the inequalities in the cultural sector in Croatia.
Tara Rukeci from
the Zrenjanin Social Forum Workers Video Club,
Serbia, presented the work of this initiative, how they started and how films
and videos made by workers or anyone that has a problem can
help improving the context and struggle for labor rights. Kristina
Ampeva from Loud
Textile Worker, North Macedonia, presented their fight that’s been going on
the last three years and stressed that without the help of the precarious
cultural workers they could not have succeeded in improving their situation.
The second panel finished with the presentation by Kire Vasilev, labor activist,
North Macedonia that gave advice how to continue the fights against precarity
and stressed that unions are the best means how to do that and that freelancers
can strengthen their position by making a collective agreement.
The symposium was concluded
with the screening of the film «Picked pickers» by the Zrenjanin Social Forum
Workers Video Club and during the symposium a mini book fair was
organized with publications from all participants.
At the concluding session, the Minister of Labor and social affairs in the Republic of North Macedonia, Mila Carovska, came and expressed her good intentions in improving the situation of precarious freelance artists and cultural workers.
At the concluding session, the Minister of Labor and social affairs in the Republic of North Macedonia, Mila Carovska, came and expressed her good intentions in improving the situation of precarious freelance artists and cultural workers.
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