Odprta zbornica za sodobno umetnost

Poročilo iz konference UNI-MEI, kjer so proučevali ekonomski status umetnikov. V fokusu so bili vizualni umetniki in pisatelji. Posredoval Denis Miklavčič.

CONFERENCE EXAMINES THE ECONOMIC STATUS OF ARTISTS

During the weekend of 12-13 November, UNI-MEI, the global union for skills and services organised a conference to examine the question “why are artists poor?”. This two day event included representatives from arts and cultural organisations and trade unions representing those working in cultural industries from all over Europe. Also present were invited speakers from the Dutch Ministry of Culture and the European Commission’s Directorate General for Internal Market.

UNI-MEI presented the results of a study that it carried out jointly with EAEA (the European Arts and Entertainment Alliance), FIA (the International Federation of Actors) and FIM (the International Federation of Musicians) entitled “Various regimes of employment and social protection of cultural workers in the EU”. The study includes chapters on the situation for artists in all the EU-15 countries with the exception of Luxembourg. It highlights the need not only to develop some kind of standard definitions describing artists but also to acknowledge that artists are usually, though not necessarily, self-employed and need to benefit from tax relief schemes as well as maintain artistic independence. However, the legal framework in which artists operate in Europe is very “elastic” and artists find themselves subject to the whims of administrative and legal interpretation effecting their ability to access state aid and to even be considered an artist.

Worryingly the study finds that the competition authorities are increasingly viewing artists not as self-employed but rather as SMEs. If artists are considered as independent enterprises they are denied the right to form unions or guilds, a factor that concerns UNI-MEI, FIM, FIA and other trade unions involved with the interests of self-employed artists.

The conference focused chiefly on visual artists and writers (novelists as well as screenwriters and playwrights).

These were some of the conclusions reached in response to conference question:
- Firstly not all artists were seen to be producing good work, however subjective this response it was also clear that many very good artists remain poor and always will be.
- The number of artist in Europe is growing and training and educational establishments offer too many places when there is not enough work available to sustain the market. The Netherlands estimates that its economy needs no more than 2000 visual artists to meet current demands. The media schools in the UK and France were criticised in particular for producing thousands of graduates in media studies who are ill-prepared for working in television and film. In France in the last 15 years there has been an increase in employment of audio-visual workers to 100,000 which is double the sector’s requirement. This has resulted in the driving down of incomes and even a lowering of quality, as broadcasters? criteria for films and TV programmes are based cost-cutting not quality and the interest of the finished product.
- Artists and students receive very little training in business skills and particularly in dealing with issues relating to tax, insurance, pensions, marketing, contracts and unionisation. Some unions like the WGGB (the Writers Guild of Great Britain) and the Swedish Union for Artists, Theatre and Media have established a presence in colleges to raise young people’s awareness and, in the case of Sweden, improve artistic competence.
- In many countries visual artists are isolated, the UK was cited in this respect. However unions in some countries such as Germany and the Netherlands have been able to establish minimum working conditions and re-sale rights for visual artists. Otherwise visual artists remain prey to galleries that charge them absurdly high commissions ranging from 50-75% and artists often must meet all the costs of exhibitions, including catalogue production. In response to this in the UK, many artists have established galleries run on a co-operative basis.
- Artists do not have enough continuity and security of employment. Unless they have a stable patron the likelihood is that an artist will always lack security. Ironically those artists that can carry on working full-time as artists and are successful invariably have a husband or wife supporting them. Those artists who lack this support generally have to have some kind of part-time job.
- Where artists are unionised or organised in guilds and can negotiate some kind of minimum terms of employment, conditions are much better, however there is a climate of fear. A gallery or film producer can easily bully a self-employed artists into signing an unfair contract and threaten the artists into silence. This is a very common practice. It is impossible due to defamation laws to publish rates and make publicly known producers and galleries that insist on unfair contracts; so only word of mouth and informal information chains can be used to inform artists of unfair employers.
- Anti-competition laws do not help the plight of artists. In Ireland a situation arose where the competition authorities ruled that Equity may not organise performers. This resulted from an advertising agency protesting that Equity had no right to organise self-employed performers who are not workers but rather “enterprises” and therefore Equity was forming a cartel. Equity has had to back-down temporarily and the ruling is being contested at the Irish courts. However the conference heard that the European Commission’s DG Competition is putting pressure on Ireland not to reverse the decision of the Irish Competition authorities. It is only German contract law that encourages the self-employed to organise into unions and to negotiate minimum terms with employers, however this could be deemed at variance with this EC interpretation of what constitutes competition. The situation could be greatly worsened with the eventual adoption of the Services Directive, which would actually reinforce the notion of the self-employed worker as a business. It was felt to be of great importance that this view is opposed and that the notion of the “self-employed worker” is up-held. The status of an artist as defined by UNESCO 20 years ago could be referred to more, whereby an artist is deemed a self-employed worker with the right to join or form unions and campaign for minimum terms of commission and employment.
- The notion of a ‘worker’ is something that the UK and UNI-MEI are quite keen to introduce in order to defend self-employed status, however the Dutch and the French feel that in their languages the situation is more complicated because the term ‘worker’ infers a position of subordination.
- A further possible solution in alleviating the poverty of artists, particularly of visual artists, is to inform the culture ministries that fund theatres, galleries, and broadcasters in order to ensure that the funds that they provide are not used to cut commissioning costs in order to increase profit.

Amongst the presentations made at the conference was one by Leonardo Cervera Navas of the Commission’s Directorate General Internal Market, Copyright and Knowledge-based Economy. A lawyer by profession working on IPR, he gave some insight to the changes in approaches by DG Internal Market. He also mentioned that copyright is not always understood in the European Community and believes that artists need to be more vocal about collecting societies.

Cervera Navas told delegates that the Copyright and Knowledge-based economy Unit carries out work in the areas of authors rights/copyright; industrial property; and recognition of diplomas and that their overall mission was to focus on a knowledge-based economy which is the goal of the Lisbon Process. He also said that the EC has to justify all proposals through cost benefit analysis and there is a move towards ‘soft’ law like ‘recommendations’.

Cervera Navas said that the DG Internal Market would like to increase the copyright industry and hence boost the knowledge economy. IPR equals 5% of GDP and 3% of employment in EU and the highest contributor in this area is the UK because of the dominant position of the English language. The Commission has started by targeting collecting management in an attempt to improve administration. In a few weeks the Commission will also adopt a position on the Database Directive. Cervera Navas said that digital technologies are rendering much of copyright law obsolete and therefore IPR has to adapt to new business models, for example some kind of remuneration mechanisms are not that good for the digital environment and therefore a review of levies will be carried out in 2006. In 2007, the Commission will discuss possibilities of developing further IPR harmonisation.

Leonardo Cervera Navas wanted to engage with the issues of the conference and go back to his Unit with a wish list from artists, he saw this wish list as
* Better regulation and policing of IPR on the Internet.
* The safeguarding of secondary rights of artists.
* The consideration that the recommendation on collecting societies, once implemented could make matters worse.
* Preventing ‘buy outs’.

In response to this initial wish list, Leonardo Cevera Navas indicated that the EC is trying to get Member States to implement the Enforcement Directive. He said there was a difficulty with ‘peer2peer’ copying, whereby people copy from one computer to another but do not respect copyright, becoming increasingly widespread. Regarding secondary and residual rights, he said that this was a UK problem and UK Copyright law will not permit harmonisation. As for the recommendation on collecting societies, he said that there was no guarantee that it will work, the raison d’etre behind the recommendation being to develop European licenses.

A presentation was also made by Mr Alex Westra of the Dutch Ministry of Culture, the Ministry is now managing a new law passed within the context of social affairs, but which includes the spending of 100 million Euros on visual arts every year.
The Netherlands has patronised the arts since 1947 and an overall policy was to develop an ‘art market’ that would enable artists to sell their work. This situation existed for some time however problems arose when dealing with the nature of employment and unemployment of artists. If artists declared that they were unemployed they lost their status as a self-employed artist. In 1990 a new law was passed ‘work and income for artists’ (WWIK). The law does give some benefits (70% of the minimum wage) for 48 months if you are recognised as an artist and if you are earning less than the minimum earnings. Support could last as long as 48 months and then the artist is independent, however early evaluation showed that artists are not being stimulated to develop independence so artists now have to indicate that they are developing and earning money. However 80% of Dutch artists still need to find additional employment.

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