UPDATE: The statute of the professional cultural worker has been adopted, with amendments, by the Romanian Government as Emergency Ordinance 21/2023. We will be back with more details on the current form of the law.

Discussions about the precariousness of the independent cultural sector in Romania – although long-standing among members of its various guilds, especially with regard to the unstable and intermittent nature of the work, as well as the near-total lack of access that its workers have to social security systems – have become all the more stringent since the pandemic. Many workers in the sector were been forced to stop working altogether between 2020 and early 2022, solely relying on the state aid that was granted at the time (a system that was far from perfect). This included both practicing artists and other workers (from technicians to cultural managers, curators, or critics) whose work is carried out either in non-state institutions or project-based environments, who belong to the so-called ‘cultural precariat’ – either as ‘providers’ of services or as project writers.

In an article published by CUTRA, researcher Adina Marincea proposes an excellent term for the latter category of cultural workers: the projectariat (a term borrowed from Polish researcher Kuba Szreder), which, from the outside, is “often seen as a kind of privileged class”, but which, in fact, is a position from which one “fights against others who are just as precarious, working endless hours and eroding your nerves off for days, weeks and months on end, to apply to a lottery where one doesn’t know whether they will get the funding or not (…) Nobody pays you for this work and nobody acknowledges it. It’s all on your own time, money, and nerves.” (Her article prefaces the publication of a guide by the anarchist publishing house Pagini Libere, penned by the Anti-Exploitation Workxr’s Collective, which proposes a handful of practices that are meant to avoid mutual or self-exploitation.)

The attempt to propose a legal framework that would offer protection to the thousands of people working independently in the Romanian cultural sector has been ongoing in local cultural circles for the last few years – from positions taken by ex-ministers, various conferences, and petitions, to proposals coming from some parliamentary political parties. 

Now it is finally getting closer to becoming reality: the Ministry of Culture published at the end of February a proposal for an emergency ordinance that would legislate, for the first time since 1989, a statute for independent professional cultural workers that has the power to radically change their situation and conditions, whether they are practicing artists or not, and to allow for a huge qualitative leap in the quality of their lives and of their access to public services. 

However, as with any proposal of this kind, there have also been some controversies. Some artists, especially those working in theatre, objected to the terminology (i.e. “cultural worker”) as being insufficiently focused on its artistic component, and called for it to be changed. Others argued that the proposed system would be easy to abuse, criticizing the key role that the Fisc would play in granting this title and a supposed “obligation” to register as a professional cultural worker – but, as the draft ordinance states, registration is purely optional, and designed to offer social protections to those who do not already enjoy them.

Although the period during which the proposed emergency ordinance was open to public debate – during which a series of conferences on its subject was held in Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Iași, and Timișoara, along with other debates – was been quite short and has already concluded, it’s still important to go through the content of the ordinance once again in order to find out what it says, what changes it will bring about and how these will apply to workers in the film industry, as well as to spot its current shortcomings.

What does the Statute say?

First of all, it’s worth pointing out that the authors of the project begin by compiling a list of reasons that justify passing this bill under the form of an emergency ordinance: in addition to reasons related to the very need for such a law (from the social impact of culture, the effects of the pandemic and the importance of a financial/fiscal framework), one of the main reasons has to do with the promised reform of the cultural sector through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), financed by the EU. If a reform project is not passed, Romania may be penalized by Brussels, which would withhold part of the sum that was promised for the country’s post-COVID reconstruction. (Well, that is, if the special pension (non-)reform doesn’t blow it all up first.)

Even if over the last 6-7 years, there has been intense criticism in the press regarding how the various cabinets that have been in power have governed by ordinance (and in some cases, I very much agree with this criticism), I am glad that this draft law is presented under this shape, because this means that its provisions will take effect immediately after its approval (once the methodology is published). This means that the qualitative leap in the lives of cultural workers will happen very quickly, instead of being delayed once again by the slowness of parliamentary procedures. And like any other emergency ordinance, it will be subject to further parliamentary scrutiny, so there is room for the errors within it to be amended. At the same time, the following should also be pointed out: the ordinance stipulates that registration applications must be submitted by the 25th of May, and the bill is to be signed into law by Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă – meaning that the Ministry of Culture is aiming for it to be approved before the cabinet rotation agreed by the governing liberal/social-democratic coalition is set to take place.

The statute (which is actually a tax regime) is aimed, first and foremost, at artists and workers who are not employed on the basis of a permanent contract at a given institution, be it state or private, under national or local administration – because, after all, the workers with such contracts already enjoy many of the social protections that will be legislated by the statute. It should also be pointed out that it is an optional system, meaning that there is no obligation for any cultural workers to register themselves as a professional.

In this sense, what the law designates as a “professional cultural worker” is the one who obtains this fiscal status, meaning “the artist and/or worker who exercises a profession, practices a cultural craft or carries out an activity in support of, or ancillary to cultural production”. In order to obtain registration, a cultural worker must have made, in the tax year preceding registration, at least 50% of their income from the intellectual property contracts (this does not include inherited property or those for scientific works), from activities listed in the ordinance’s annex (more on this below), or from fixed-term employment contracts in the cultural field, which are no longer in force at the time of application.

The registration applications will be processed by the ANAF (the Romanian National Fiscal Agency), which is obliged to respond to them within a span of 30 days – if 45 days pass by with no answer, the application will be automatically approved. One can be registered as a professional cultural worker for the duration of three years (and said registration is temporarily suspended or terminated in various situations described in Articles 6 and 7 of the ordinance), and for their first three years of registration, the worker also benefits from a 50% reduction in health insurance costs. 

In short, these are the main changes brought about by the proposed statute:

• The introduction of cultural activity contracts: this new class of contracts will replace many of the intellectual property rights and service provision contracts used in the industry. 
• Social security: all contracts will have to contain, in addition to specific performance evaluation arrangements, provisions relating to the health and safety of the worker during their work – an absolute first for the independent sector. At the same time, professional workers insured under the public system are covered for sick leave, temporary incapacity benefits, unemployment, and maternity/childcare leave.
• Tax reliefs: all cultural activity contracts will be subject to a flat-rate deduction of 40%. In addition, between 2023-2026, all professional cultural workers will not pay any income tax for intellectual property rights and cultural activity contracts.
• Activity years: a long-standing problem for self-employed workers was that they could not count their years of employment as years of service for their pension file; now, their years of being registered as a professional cultural worker will (also) count as years of service.
• Rent allowance: professional cultural workers who sign a contract with an institution outside their town of residence may receive a (non-taxable!) monthly allowance from the budget of said institution, to secure their accommodation for the duration of the contract; the maximum amount of the allowance is up to 50% of the median salary.
• Travel reimbursement, insurance for works/equipment, and training courses: under the umbrella of the ”national mobility program”, professional cultural workers will be able to obtain funds to support up to 90% of their mobility expenses (both national and international) for Țparticipation in conferences, workshops, exhibitions, exchanges, creative camps, and residencies”, which would be a blessing for those whose work depends on the international festival circuit, and 80% for transport and insurance of works and equipment. The same 90% is also allocated to “expenditure on the acquisition of new skills, with priority for the development of digital skills of professional cultural workers”.
• Unionization: The opportunity for unionization in the film industry, if the ordinance passes, will be unprecedented – while artists (for example, actors at state theatres) or those employed at various public institutions already have the opportunity to form unions, in the film industry, where the vast majority of jobs exist in the private sector, many in environments where they often cannot meet the minimum legal requirements for setting up a union, workers will finally have the leverage to initiate collective bargaining with those who hire them. These structures will be called ‘professional associations of cultural workers’, and they will have, among others, the power to initiate collective agreements. (They must be made up of at least 50 workers from the same sector of activity, who may be members of only one such association at the same time).
• Quantifying the size of the Romanian independent cultural sector: Although there have been attempts to count how many Romanians work in the independent cultural sector in the past (such as the one carried out by INCFC in 2020), there is currently no solid figure at hand. The introduction of the register of professional cultural workers means more than just a reliable figure – it’s also a lever to analyze their demographics. 

What does the law omit concerning workers in the film industry (and others)?

Although, as I said earlier, the approval of this ordinance would lead to an immediate and huge qualitative leap in the lives of artists and independent workers, this does not mean that the draft, in its current form, is in any way perfect. This is evidenced by several shortcomings to which various representatives of the film industry have drawn attention – in particular, festival organizers, who we understand (from our sources) have submitted proposals to amend the ordinance – which I will explain below.

It should also be mentioned here that Iulia Popovici, one of the most prominent architects of the statute, stated during a program hosted by the national television channel, TVR Cultural, that Romania’s list of CAEN (Classification of Activities in the National Economy) codes should also be amended in order to reflect various trades that are currently not covered. As far as the film industry is concerned, the relevant codes included in the annex are as follows:

• 5911 Motion picture, video, and television program production activities (including film archives) and television program activities (television series, documentaries, etc.) or television commercials.
• 5912 Motion picture, video, and television program post-production activities
• 5920 Sound recording and music publishing activities
• 7410 Specialized design activities
• 7490 Other professional, scientific, and technical activities
• 8552 Cultural education (languages, music, drama, dance, fine arts, and others)
• 9003 Creative activities
• 9004 Theatre management activities

However, as the industry representatives pointed out, there already are several extant CAEN codes that are relevant but have not been included in this annex. These gaps would mainly affect film distributors and projectionists, people working in the field of specialized film publications (be they magazines or publishing houses), including film critics, as well as set photographers. The codes proposed by industry representatives to complete the list are the following:

• 5811 Book publishing activities
• 5814 Publishing activities of magazines and periodicals
• 5819 Other publishing activities
• 5913 Motion picture, video, and television program distribution activities
• television programs
• 5914 Motion picture projection
• 7420 Photographic activities

However, the problems already start with the framing and definition of what constitutes “cultural activity” and the definition of the entities that may contract a cultural worker.

With regard to the former, the definition does not explicitly include the scope of activities that is specific to festivals (from organizational and curatorial work to print traffic or subtitling), exhibitions, film distribution, cultural publishing or cultural educational but is limited to “the creation of a literary or artistic work or a protected object and/or artistic performance”, together with the CAEN codes mentioned in the annex. 

In the second case, the definition may affect what cultural workers qualify for rent allowance – it only provides for “a contract with a performing arts or concert institution”, which would leave not just the employees of cinemas or film/video archives, but also those of cultural newsrooms, film production/distribution companies, or of NGOs working in the field of cinema.

As mentioned above, all these issues have been raised with the Ministry of Culture by members of the film industry – but until a new form of the ordinance is published, we cannot know whether these changes have been implemented.

A few conclusions

The fact that this piece of legislation, that would regulate the rights of independent cultural workers, has finally emerged is more than simply welcome – it has every chance of turning into a revolution of the cultural sector, lifting thousands of artists and independent workers out of precariousness and finally offering them a social safety net.

However, the current form could leave – at least as far as film industry employees are concerned – workers in festivals, distribution companies, cultural editors/publishers, and film researchers uncovered. And it is precisely these kinds of workers who are among the most vulnerable in the industry, the most dependent on project-based work; and extremely few of them have stable contracts or access to welfare state services. 

At the same time, given that – like the film industry, as a whole – their activity is concentrated in a tiny handful of cities in the country (mainly Bucharest), they are among those who would benefit most from rent subsidies and, given the nature of their work, national and international transport allowances. All I can hope is that these shortcomings of the ordinance will be amended; if not, it’s imperious that these workers will mobilize to fight for their rights.

Flavia Dima

Film critic & journalist. Collaborates with local and international outlets, programs a short film festival - BIEFF, does occasional moderating gigs and is working on a PhD thesis about home movies. At Films in Frame, she writes the monthly editorial - The State of Cinema and is the magazine's main festival reporter.