A-Infos (en) France, Union Communiste Libertaire UCL AL #308 - Unionism, Between viruses and bosses: intermittent people on the grill (de, it, fr, pt)[machine translation]

The cultural and entertainment sector being almost at a standstill due to the coronavirus, this category of workers is hit by massive 
unemployment. What will happen at the end of the "white year" decided by the government ? ---- The two months of confinement will have been 
two months of uncertainty concerning the fate of workers in the entertainment industry. Yet they did not stand idly by. Organized through 
their unions and their collectives[1], they proposed evolving health protocols (reviewed every two months) by post, targeting the problems 
and solutions of each and everyone, as well as the questions to be asked to them. health professionals. ---- In some cases, by reacting 
collectively, they have succeeded in blocking employers' attempts to take advantage of the coronavirus to lay off en masse. Thus, at 
Disneyland Paris, on April 11, more than 1,300 fixed-term contracts and temporary workers - musicians, actors, technicians, stuntwomen and 
stuntmen, costume designers and make-up artists - received an email from the management entitled "Rupture amicable agreement of your 
employment contract" . This announced to them nothing less than the early end of their contract ... without compensation of course because 
"case of force majeure" !The CGT-Spectacle federation immediately called on all those concerned not to sign anything, and blocked this 
maneuver à la Onc'Picsou. After hype at the social and economic committee, the ministry, the labor inspectorate, the CGT obtained that all 
those concerned be reinstated in the workforce of the company, and benefit from the Partial unemployment.

In the film sector, all productions have officially been shut down even though it is well known that employees came to work illegally and in 
dangerous conditions, while being declared "unemployed." partial"by companies which pocketed public money[2].

In the audiovisual sector (TV channel), where distancing is not always possible, minimum protective measures had to be taken. It is often 
the first and first concerned who, in this matter, are responsible for giving the spotlight to their employers.

Today, if the shootings were able to resume, the live performance, it is still under cover, condemning a large number of small structures. 
The government knows that the cultural sector can be united and reactive in the defense of its rights. And among these, the special 
unemployment insurance scheme for intermittent and intermittent workers. Tens of thousands of them and they could not contribute in 2020 
because of the health crisis. In May, unions and intermittent collectives obtained from the government the application of a "white year "And 
the maintenance of unemployment rights, whatever happens, until August 31, 2021. A pressure relief valve that remains unsatisfactory as it 
leaves people on the side of the road. Nothing is planned for those entering, prevented from reopening or opening unemployment rights ; 
nothing either for women returning from maternity leave, or people returning from long-term sick leave: a scandal for equal rights and 
savings made at the expense of the most vulnerable. A privileged status, really ?

In a more general way, the government wants to maintain at all costs, for the 1 stSeptember, the second part of his unemployment insurance 
reform. According to Unedic, it must reduce by 30 to 75% the benefits of 650,000 unemployed. And among the people affected: intermittent and 
intermittent entertainment workers, who benefit from a special regime adapted to the specificity of their activity.

cc Red photo library
This allows them to live despite often mediocre wages and hours of preparation, research, training, writing, rehearsal which, as a rule, are 
unpaid. The rule of the game is as follows: for unemployment compensation, you must have declared, in less than twelve months, 507 hours of 
contract work. If the artist or technician concerned does not manage to accumulate these 507 hours within the allotted time, it is the loss 
of the intermittency regime, and the return to the RSA box.

The horizon of the end of rights is twice as close
If we compare with the general regime, the precariousness is not less. Indeed, since the hardening of the rules in November 2019, employees 
must, to open their rights to unemployment compensation, contribute six months (or 840 hours), but within a period twice as long: 
twenty-four month. The horizon of the end of rights is therefore twice as close for intermittent and intermittent workers, and this 
insecurity closes a lot of doors for them, in particular when they take out a bank loan or rent a home. Each year, the number of workers 
entering the race for intermittency increases by 8 %, faster growth than the volume of jobs available. Competition is therefore fierce, the 
507 hours more difficult to achieve, and we see more and more colleagues switching to self-entrepreneurship and accepting lower pay per use.

But this category of cultural workers also have a right to dignity ! The cultural sector needs them to exist. And society as a whole needs 
culture, critical thinking, dreams and imagination.

For more than forty years, governments have wanted to put populations and sectors in competition, invoking ever more flexibility in the name 
of "economic reason" and unraveling the Labor Code. This strategy common to Medef and the State has, however, logically always pushed the 
proletariat to fight to defend its rights. Today, the cultural sector is facing a major social crisis. We must remain vigilant in the face 
of the backlash prepared by employers, and of which the current reform of unemployment insurance is only the prelude.

Aurel (UCL Toulouse and surroundings)

REVOLUTIONIZING CULTURE
Since the start of the coronavirus crisis, culture workers have shown imagination, drawing as many avenues to change the work of tomorrow.

In the cultural sector, a libertarian communist society would encourage the pooling of equipment and knowledge, like the collectivization of 
film production practiced during the Spanish Revolution of 1936 by unions of directors, technicians and artists. .

A flattening of the hierarchies between artistic genres, more self-management and de-jail of tasks in production would eliminate the power 
relations between genres and professions. The population would have access to a greater diversity of creations, as multiple as they are 
varied, far from commercial obligations.

Validate

[1] We should also point out that, during the crisis, two new unions were created in the cultural sector: the Union of United Culture and 
Entertainment Workers (Stucco) and the Union of Artists-Authors Workers ( STAA), both affiliated to the CNT-SO (anarcho-syndicalist).

[2] This is the case for 31% of employees who were declared "partially unemployed" according to a CGT survey of May 2020.

In / S'informer / AL , the monthly / issues of 2020 / AL for September is on newsstands !
Edito: face uncovered
Layoffs epidemic: the right vaccine is the fight !
Antisocial back to school: the Macron-Castex agenda
Libertarian communist orientation: struggles against unemployment and layoffs
Undocumented: marches across the country
Eric Dupond-Moretti: a rapist inside, an accomplice to justice
Gisèle Halimi (1927-2020): conquering women's rights
#IwasCorsica: to finally break the omerta
Metallurgy: how the UIMM wants to do more work while paying less
Between viruses and bosses: intermittent people on the grill
Back to school: who are the fafs attacking the universities ?
1870: To wage war and revolution, with Bakounine in Lyon

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Entre-virus-et-patronat-les-intermittent-es-sur-le-grill
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