A better social and economic protection for independent artists

New legislation for workers in the cultural sector

Roxana Vasile, 19.04.2023, 14:00

The Romanian Government in early April issued
an emergency ordinance regulating the status of the professional cultural worker.
The normative act has been worked and reworked on for almost two years now. The set of regulations seeks to bring to normal
the fiscal and socio-economic condition of all artists, writers, actors who
work in an atypical way, who are not like the usual employees. Concurrently, the
bill seeks to give an impetus to cultural workers so they can make the most of their
creative potential, at once being able to stay active on the labor market.

Romanian representative
Delia Bădoi has been mandated by the
Ministry of Culture to become a member of the working group the European Commission
has created, with a view to elaborating a European set of regulations for the
artist. Delia Badoi has also participated in the elaboration of the normative
act in Romania. Here she is, briefing us on the circumstances they have been working
on until recently.

The basic
idea was that in Romania, as well as in other countries, cultural workers,
artists, could work under the general legislation. Practically, there was a series
of laws still valid, as we speak, laws we can find in the Labor Code
legislation and the copyright law and suchlike. Yet apart from that, we have obviously the independent forms, for
instance, the authorized self-employed person, plus the fact that some of the artists
work through their own firms, they are legal persons. Our legislation is quite fragmented
as regards the working conditions, meaning we do not have a unitary legislative
document that can include a series of stipulations capable of preventing a series
of economic vulnerabilities regarding the activity of the cultural sector workers.
And then this set of regulations, just as it had been stipulated as early as the 1980s when
we practically had a UNESCO directive issued for us to compose it, has the clear purpose of render
the intermittent, atypical activity of the cultural sector more unitary, an activity
which is at once very specific. So the necessity was quite impending, to place
under the same umbrella a series of measures we labelled as benefits, rights, enabling
cultural sector workers to have a normal status.

Actor Doru Taloș is also the initiator of
the Cluj-Napoca-based Reactor cultural independent project. His professional
experience so far has made him aware of the risks posed by a profession which
is not clearly recognized and regulated from a fiscal point of view. With
details on that, here is Doru Talos himself.

I have been working, for
the last nine years, in Romania, carrying a workload that sometimes was much larger
than average. And yet, my
employment record includes one year and a half. So I do not have accumulated service
in my field of activity, I have not contributed to the pension fund so far and
these needs are getting more and more serious once we get older. Up until last
year I did not have health insurance because I could not afford it. And I also
hope that, once a legislative framework is implemented, once a series of fiscal
benefits is implemented or awareness is raised about the specific needs at
that level, things can improve and we can reach a formula by means of which we can
also cover these absolutely important needs and expenses.

Therefore, the passing
of the bill of the cultural worker status can only be viewed as an auspicious
sign, as one first step towards the status of Romania’s freelance artists becoming
normal.

Doru Taloș once again:

We are extremely vulnerable,
in the long run, and we expose ourselves to certain risks since we fail to ensure
some sort of sustainability capable of offering a series of long-term guarantees
as well. This normative act, I hope it would bring some sort of clarification
for the people working in the field, at once making them responsible, so that
by assuming this status we can have a form of long-term survival, which means
it should take us to the point where we can feel we carry our activity as a
long-term job. For the time being, my feeling is that all those working in the
sector are willing to work as long as they are ready to make a series of
sacrifices, while, sometimes, such sacrifices, you can make them only at a
certain stage of your life. The needs I had when I was 25 have nothing to do
with the needs I have at the age of 35. And then clarifications are needed, so
that it can become a long-term profession or a kind of commitment that can work
on a long-term basis.

Here is Delia Badoi
once again, this time speaking about the content of the law proper:

It is important to specify that, under this status, a cultural
activity contract will be created. In effect, it will be a type of standardized
contract we will be working on, as the very moment the worker is registered,
the registration will be submitted to two institutions. First off, the incomes
will be declared to the inland revenue service by filling in the standardized
form by May 25th and submitting an affidavit specifying the incomes
and the cultural activity fall within the activities stipulated by the status
of the cultural worker. Then another type of registration will be submitted, to
the Ministry of Culture, in a specific register, where the names of the workers
proper are included. It will most likely be a little experiment for the next
three years, when it is clearly obvious what the specific interest is for that
area, how much people understood what they had to do, how much they wanted to
have that set of regulations or how much good or bad we do. Yet, the worst-case
scenario would be for that set of regulations to be inexistent, as it is through
that set of regulations the improvement is pursued, and the plight of the
intermittent work is eased, for the work in the cultural sector. And then, through
the cultural activity contract, the legal status of that specific activity is
acquired.

Just like any other category of legislation,
the set of regulations targeting the professional cultural worker is
perfectible. However, as we speak, the envisaged categories are happy an important
step has been taken, so that such workers’ vulnerable status is overcome.