Musicians Union of Malawi geared to eliminate artists’ exploitation
Musicians Union of Malawi (Mum) has embarked on a mission to eliminate the exploitation of artists through binding contracts.
Speaking on the sidelines, of a workshop on Monday, Mum president, Reverend Chimwemwe Mhango said, there have been a lot disagreements between musicians and the corporate world.
“We have had incidents where the musicians have launched complaints against the corporate entities following disagreement over payments. So, we want to come up with a system where musicians can sign agreements and make sure that they have legal backup. In case of anything there shouldn’t be problems because it will be easy to go back to the contracts,” Mhango said.
Mhango said Mum is trying to protect musicians in the country from exploitation.
“We would like to get rid of all the disagreements we have been experiencing between our musicians and the corporate world,” Mhango said.
One of the musicians in the country, Ethel Kamwendo Banda, commended the initiative saying verbal agreements have for a long time let them down.
“The contracts will really help us because in the past we were just doing things out of ignorance. People steal from us because we usually don’t have cont r act s . And sometimes it happens that we are paid less money than we are supposed to be paid and because we didn’t sign anywhere before the payments we get less. This is hard to seek legal redress because there is no concrete evidence but with the contracts, things will change,” Kamwendo Banda said.
Kamwendo Banda went on to give her own experience about a client who wanted to pay her less than what she deserved.
“A certain company approached me recently to help them promote their goods and it happened that they gave me their contract, telling me what to do when it was the company that needed my service. After seeing their contract, I backed down because people would have thought I had gotten a lot of money when I had not,” She said.
Kamwendo Banda said a lot of artists have been subjugated due to lack of contracts.
“Companies exploit us because they know we do not have contracts which we can possibly use to sue them in case there is a breach of contract. So these contracts Mum is trying to come up with will prevent us from being demoralised,” she said.
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