COLLECTIVE REPRESENTATION

Freedom of association
Article 43 of the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia ('Narodne novine",/Official Gazette/ no. 4 1 /0 1) guarantees the freedom of association for the purpose of protecting social, economic, cultural and other convictions and objectives and, to that end, trade unions and other associations can freely be established.

The right to establish professional associations and trade unions
Accordingly, artists can establish their professional associations in compliance with he Law on the rights of self-employed artists and promotion of cultural and artistic creativity for the protection and promotion of professional interests, while artists who are working for employers can, in addition to the mentioned professional associations, freely establish trade unions in compliance with the Labor Law ('Narodne novine",/Official Gazette/ nos. 38/95,54,95,65,95 and 17/01) for protecting and promoting their labor-related rights. Likewise, artists can regulate their labor-related rights through collective agreements.
The labor-related rights of artists employed in public services are regulated by the General Collective Agreement for senior and lower grade employees in public services ("Narodne novine"/Official Gazette/ no. 3/02), which was the result of collective bargaining.

Artists can implement their rights provided by law through the procedures regulated by the above-mentioned laws and by-laws. These regulations also provide artists with the right to legal remedies, ensuring in this way control over the realization of their rights. In the realization of their rights, therefore, artists have legal protection in the form of legal remedies, guaranteed by Article 18 of the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia, wherein any arbitrariness in the proceedings is excluded.

Source: Croatian Commission for UNESCO, February 2003.