About KLYS

What does KLYS mean?
Who can become a member?
What is KLYS?
What does KLYS do?
How does KLYS work?
Who decides and who is in charge?
What does KLYS mean to cultural policy and to culture workers?

What does KLYS mean?

KLYS, an acronym, stands for Konstnärliga och Litterära Yrkesutövares Samarbetsnämnd, which in English means the Swedish Joint Committee for Artistic and Literary Professionals.

Who can become a member?

Membership in KLYS is available only to organizations, not to private individuals. The member organizations are national Swedish organizations in the cultural area. Their members are artistic or literary professionals, and the main purpose of the organization is to protect the interests of the members in terms of cultural politics and union concerns. A section or subsection of this kind of national organization can also become a member of KLYS if it looks after a certain portion of the activities of the main organization on the national level.
These days KLYS has established influence in all areas of cultural endeavor. This fact, plus the development of the election rules for KLYS, constitutes a guarantee that each member organization is representative in its area throughout the country.

What is KLYS?

KLYS was formed in 1959 in order to increase the impact of cultural workers in union and cultural policy matters. The basis for the operation at that time was an agreement on cooperation. This has since then been replaced by statutes that govern the duties and administration of KLYS.
KLYS is an umbrella organization and an agency of cooperation. All affiliated organizations are autonomous, and the KLYS operation is based on unity among them.

What does KLYS do?

According to the statutes, the objective of KLYS is to work for cooperation among the member organizations and to foster unity among various artistic and literary professionals.
KLYS should also instill - among culture consumers, the general public, government agencies, and political decision makers - understanding for the financial and social conditions of the affiliated professional groups.

In order to be able to fulfill these objectives, KLYS must, according to its statutes:

represent the member organizations to the public, nationally as well as internationally, on issues of common interest regarding legislation and cultural policy;
work for a general freedom of expression in all artistic media;
participate in government investigations and studies of mutual interest to the members;
work so that artistic and literary professionals are given opportunity to carry out their professions and are awarded fair compensation for their work;
work for the social security of artistic and literary professionals;
on request from a member organization, assist it in negotiations and support it in conflicts that the board deems to be legitimate;
in cases in which member organizations have conflicting interests, settle the dispute, upon request from one or more of them;
on request of a member organization express itself on a question that concerns the internal affairs of the organization or a situation relating to its counterpart and thus recommend appropriate measures.

How does KLYS work?

On the practical level KLYS fulfills its objectives in several ways, including these:

KLYS strives to find a common platform for the contributions of member organizations in the area of cultural policy, and to coordinate these contributions. KLYS also furnishes support to the member organizations, particularly the small ones, for example, in questions concerning legislation and ongoing endeavors in cultural policy.

Since 1963 KLYS has served as a body to which legislative proposals are referred. Each year KLYS issues a number of statements after deliberation over government and other reports in areas such as cultural policy, tax questions, labor market issues, copyright matters, and media questions.

With the Swedish Department of Culture, KLYS regularly conducts discussions on various matters and problems of cultural policy. Each year KLYS invites the Minister of Culture to a hearing with the KLYS board.

When it is summoned to do so, KLYS attends the cultural affairs committee of the Swedish parliament and/or of individual agencies and municipalities to defend or accentuate cultural values and to uphold the interests of its members. KLYS often has direct or indirect representation in government investigations or working groups in the area of culture. KLYS is for example represented in the labour market drafting committee of AMS (the Swedish National Labour Market Administration). Also, when necessary, the KLYS copyright working group is summoned to hearings and to consultations with the Department of Justice. By participating in public discussion, KLYS can further keep watch over cultural life.

On its own initiative, KLYS arranges meetings and conferences on matters of cultural policy or other questions that may be of interest, such as taxation rights or copyright. KLYS also creates its own investigations or issues statements and proposals. This has occurred especially in regard to matters of taxation and copyright.

KLYS is not a negotiating organization. However, in certain instances the development of technology has led to a need for mutual agreements. Therefore a good number of the KLYS organizations, together with STIM (the Swedish Performing Rights Society), SAMI (the Swedish Artists' and Musicians' Interest Organization), and NCB (Nordic Copyright Bureau), have formed the negotiations cartel COPYSWEDE. Since 1982, COPYSWEDE has reached agreements on secondary use of copyrighted works and performances in the form of, for example, programs broadcast by satellite or cable plus the production of videograms. KLYS and Copyswede are situated on the same premises and cooperate closely on copyright-related issues. KLYS also cooperates with other copyright organizations, for example BUS (the Swedish visual artists' copyright organization), ALIS (the Swedish literary rights organization), STIM (the Swedish Performing Rights Society), SAMI (the Swedish Artists' and Musicians' Interest Organization), TROMB (the Swedish actors' union's rights organization), which are all represented in KLYS's copyright working group. Also, copying in the schools is regulated by an agreement between the government and a copyright organization called BONUS, in which several KLYS organizations are included.

When necessary, the member organizations can call upon KLYS for union support in the form of public hearings, statements, oversight actions, or expressions of solidarity. For example, this occurred in 1969 in connection with a much-discussed action to improve the library loan royalty for authors. KLYS acted on behalf of the Swedish Union of Theatrical Employees in connection with a notification of conflict against Swedish Radio in 1976. In 1982, KLYS called upon the government to initiate the collective exhibition payments. When the budget proposition for 1996 was presented, KLYS conducted an inspection for the cultural affairs committee and protested against the cutback of the music grants and demanded that a commission be appointed to study music policy. KLYS has also supported the Writers' Union's campaign to save libraries threatened with closure.

KLYS maintains informative contacts nationally as well as internationally. Thus, certain KLYS organisation are members of CICAC (Confédération Internationale des Sociétés d'Auteurs et Compositeurs), FIA (Fédération Internationale des Acteurs), FIT (Fédération Internationale des Traducteurs), EWC (the European Writers' Congress), BWC (the Baltic Writers' Council) and the Three Seas' Writers' and Translators' Council (the Baltic sea, the Black sea and the Aegean). In Nordiska Konstnärsrådet (the Council of Nordic Artists), which was formed in 1986, KLYS exchanges information with its Nordic sister organizations. With the entrance of Sweden into the European Union, KLYS's task of overseeing the area of cultural policy has been internationalized and one of the new duties is to make contact with members of the European Parliament and other influential organizations and persons, in order to be able to influence the cultural policy decided in Brussels. One prerequisite for success in this work is that it is done in collaboration with other artists' organizations in Europe. KLYS works on the European field both directly, for example by contacting MEP:s, and through the organization EFAH (European Forum for Arts and Heritage). Internationally, KLYS has, together with the CCA (Canadian Conference of the Arts) created an international network that will be officially founded in September 2000. The most important issue for this network is to state the importance of culture and to safeguard cultural diversity in for example international trade agreements. The aim is to establish a Cultural Agenda 21.

In order to inform its own members, the KLYS secretariat publishes regularly information about our activities on the Internet (www.klys.se). KLYS also provides links to its member organizations and to other addresses on the net. As a service measure to both its own members and to other cultural workers, KLYS publishes a list of scholarships and housing subsidies in the area of culture, which is revised biannually and sold at cost by the secretariat. It can also be found on the KLYS homepage.

Who decides and who is in charge?

The assigned duties of KLYS are discharged not only by the secretariat but also by a working committee consisting of ten duly elected members of the organizations and the president of KLYS. This working body, the decision-making and executive agency for ongoing endeavors, meets about once a month. The highest decision-making body of KLYS is the board, which consists of one member and two alternates from each organization. The board meets at least three times a year. To assist in the work, KLYS also has working groups, both temporary and permanent.

What does KLYS mean to cultural policy and to culture workers?

KLYS was formed in 1959. The conditions of cultural workers were then totally unacceptable and the government's measures for these groups practically nonexistant. During the first years, the contributions of KLYS were therefore concentrated on improving the financial status of cultural workers. This was done mainly through demands for government grants. KLYS still devotes regular attention to this area.

In the area of copyright, KLYS has for a long time held a central position. KLYS has, among other things, its own group of expert advisers on these questions. On several

occasions KLYS has submitted proposals to the Department of Justice for the revision of the copyright laws and thus strengthened the position of artists in social life. One example of this work is the blank tape levy, effected in 1999.

Since the seventies the questions of taxation and benefits have figured centrally in the work of KLYS. On several occasions KLYS has done its own studies on these questions and in various forums stressed the need for explicit rules that make it possible to earn a living from creative work. Through KLYS's taxation group, the board has access to expertise in these matters.

One area closely associated with taxes and benefits is labour market issues. These questions are discussed in the KLYS's labour market working group, which also has representatives in the AMS' (Swedish National Labour Market Administration) delegation for work in cultural affairs. Recently, a new working group has been created, which looks into the questions of social security for artists, especially for self-employees.

As a result of the rapid technological development in recent years and Sweden's membership in the European Union, media questions have come to take an increasingly dominant place in KLYS work. The new satellite channels and the planned digitalization of radio and TV have placed the concept of public service in the limelight. On several different occasions, both nationally and internationally, KLYS has commented on the importance of maintaining the quality of public service in the new media.

KLYS represents Sweden's living cultural life. It gave KLYS prestige and impact when the new cultural policy was formulated. It has also meant that KLYS has a special responsibility in defending the cultural dimension of our society. Therefore, KLYS must react forcefully when fundamental cultural values are threatened. A part of the mission of KLYS includes conducting investigations, arranging debates, and organizing demonstrations when necessary. In cases in which culture has been especially threatened in a certain locale, KLYS has managed to ward off decisions that would have been devastating to the community's cultural life by quickly initiating studies and actions. The role of KLYS as an opinionmaker should not be underestimated.

But KLYS is also the think tank and development bank of the collective Swedish cultural life. For a lively and constructive debate on cultural policy, it is also necessary to put forward new ideas, to sound out the unknown, to take the time and imagination necessary to peek around the corner. Here KLYS has an important mission as an initiative taker for seminars, whether internal or with politicians, the public and the international artists' society, on the role of culture as a conveyor of knowledge and a seismograph of the times.

In summary: the most important objective of KLYS is now, and in the future will remain, the sustenance of the cultural dimension in our lives.