A The complaint was made today, in a statement, by seven structures representing cultural professionals, demanding an “immediate response” to the delays on the part of the Social Security Financial Management Institute.
At issue is the allocation of the “subsidy for the suspension of artistic activity”, equivalent to unemployment benefit, for self-employed workers, with very short-term contracts and who are registered in the register of professionals in the field of Culture.
“It is unacceptable that there are requests waiting for a response for several months, the applicants fulfilling all the criteria for their attribution”, underline the structures, which say they have received “several complaints”.
According to those structures, “on the date of the request, any professional must have been without income for a month and subject to the payment of contributions for the minimum amount, which adds to the urgency of their attribution”.
This support is inscribed in the Statute of Cultural Professionals, long demanded by the sector and whose application came into effect in a phased manner in 2022. It is only from October 1, 2022 that workers can access that subsidy.
“A measure that should have been in place since October 2022 has not yet passed the paper”, they lamented, considering that the objective of the subsidy is compromised “for those who work project by project and therefore have intermittent income”.
One of the first steps to be covered by the Statute of Cultural Professionals is to be registered in the register of professionals.
In January of this year, there were 2,158 workers registered in that register, 302 less than in October, according to data made available at the time by sector representatives to the Lusa agency.
Today, in a statement, they say that “the most likely” is that more workers will give up the new regime, “seeing the expectation of receiving a subsidy for suspension of activity”.
The seven signatory structures of the communiqué are Ação Cooperatividade, Acesso Cultura, the Portuguese Association of Directors, the Union of Show, Audiovisual and Musicians Workers, Performart – Association for the Performing Arts in Portugal, Plateia – Association of Performing Arts Professionals and the Network – Association of Structures for Contemporary Dance.
In the statement, they state that they have already asked the General Inspection of Cultural Activities (IGAC) for clarification, because it is “the interlocutor for this matter and chairs the meetings of the Statute Follow-up Committee”.
“To date, the only response obtained was the information that the IGAC would request clarification from Social Security”, reads in the document.
They also regret that “public institutions have not been able to implement the Statute of Professionals in the Area of Culture”, not least because the statute monitoring commission, which should have met every quarter since January 2022, ultimately only had two meetings .
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