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France's precarious film festival workers' association has warned that a mass exodus of festival staff from the industry puts the Cannes Film Festival and other major French film events at “risk” after a plan they drew up to resolve ongoing pay disputes was “rejected” by France's culture and labour ministries.
The group, which includes staff from the Cannes Film Festival and workers from other film festivals across France, met in Cannes this week with the festival's management, the CNC, the French Ministry of Labor and Culture, the CGT and France's other major entertainment unions to discuss plans to streamline the complicated hiring and compensation process for France's festival workers.
In a statement to Deadline, the organisation said: “Despite the urgency of the situation shared by all parties, the French Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Labour have rejected any hypothesis of exceptional or transitional measures to quickly resolve the issue of living standards for festival workers.”
The group's full statement can be seen below: However, the group said that the French government and all parties involved in the talks have committed to developing a long-term plan to restructure the pay structure and include festival workers in France's temporary benefits scheme, which guarantees a regular income to entertainment industry workers.
But the group said any delay or prolonged resolution would have a major impact on their livelihoods and the running of France's main film event.
“By the time this is translated into concrete measures, many of us will be so poorly paid between contracts that we will leave the profession and take our expertise away from festivals,” the group said.
“Indeed, without the guarantee of joining the intermittent system at the end of this structuring process, the festival is likely to be stuck in limbo.”
The group's statement concluded: “The responses we have received do not seem commensurate with the situation faced by hundreds of workers. We will not abandon our demands.”
The statement was signed by Directors' Fortnight, Critics' Fortnight, ACID, Carrefour des Festivals, which represents more than 60 film festivals, and CGT Spectacles, France's largest entertainment workers' union.
The Precarious Film Festival Workers collective had a small but sustained presence in Cannes this year, with festival staff and attendees wearing the collective's bright red badges around town and on the festival grounds, and its members even launched a protest on the roof of the Palais on the opening night.
Cannes Film Festival director Thierry Frémaux addressed the festival organisation head-on at a press conference on the first day of the festival, telling reporters in the room that negotiations with the festival organisation were ongoing and that the festival was negotiating directly with them on the issue.
The Cannes Film Festival ends on May 25th.
statement
Tuesday, May 21In Cannes, a meeting was held between the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Culture, the CNC, the Festival Carrefour, the Cannes Film Festival, the Film Criticism Week, ACID, CGT Spectacles, the F3C CFDT and the precarious workers' organisation “Sous les écrans la dèche”.
We reiterated our main demand: that all festival employees be urgently put on a temporary employment scheme, as this is the only way they can earn a decent living from their work. Festival representatives and unions are working with us to defend this demand, because our survival depends on it, as does the survival of the events we work with.
Despite the common understanding among all parties that the situation was urgent, the Ministries of Culture and Labour rejected the hypothesis of exceptional or transitional measures to quickly resolve the issue of festival workers' living standards. They argued that the only way to make certain professions eligible for temporary measures was to link them to the sector and its collective agreements. The responsibility was therefore returned to the social partners.
The French Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Labor have offered us their support in structuring the sector, with a view to signing a collective agreement in the coming months. In the long term, this collective agreement may make it possible to integrate “certain festival technician positions” into the intermittent system. The decline in living standards, the abandonment of the sector and the associated loss of skills are all the result of a series of unemployment insurance reforms carried out by the government, which have led to a significant reduction in remuneration between the two contracts. They say nothing about the unemployment insurance reform, which will be adopted on July 1st, which will further weaken and threaten certain sectors whose activity is not continuous and which require skilled workers available in the short term.
Nevertheless, the parties at the conference are committed to following this necessary structuring process, which will allow for the determination of minimum wage levels in line with the scale of the festival, the regulation of working hours and the provision of social security for employees. However, they call for transitional measures to be applied in the coming months while this structuring process continues.
The Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Culture have begun to “estimate the economic impact of the proposed contracts on the festival's budget”. By the time this is translated into concrete measures, many of us will have reached such a low level of remuneration between contracts that we will abandon our profession and take our expertise away from the festival. Indeed, without the guarantee of joining the intermittent scheme at the end of this structuring process, the festival is likely to come to a standstill.
The answers we have received do not seem commensurate with the situation hundreds of workers are in.
We will not give up our demands.
It is supported by SRF, Directors' Fortnight, Critics' Fortnight, ACID, Carrefour des festivals (representing over 60 festivals), CGT spectacle and F3C CFDT.
