The strike is on.
After days of tense discussions, we can confirm that collective workers at the French film festivals, which we first reported on last week, have drawn up plans for a large-scale strike over pay for this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
The group, known as the Collectif des précaires des Festivals de Cinéma (which translates to “The Collective of Precarious Workers at Film Festivals”), confirmed their plans with an open letter this morning deadline.
“In a context of extreme vulnerability and absolute emergency, in order to protect our work and after consultation and coordination of the members of the collective, we call for a strike by all employees of the Cannes Film Festival and its peripheral sectors,” the group said.
The collective includes up to 200 French film festival staff – a combination of Cannes staff, including those who work on the official selection, the festival’s Marché du Film and parallel sections of Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week – and staff from other festivals throughout World France. Potential strikers include festival projectionists, press officers and administrative staff.
The group’s strike action is the result of two key issues. They initially protest against the wage packages they receive from their employers. They believe these are inadequate and often do not take into account the arduous overtime that is often required due to the demands of their work.
The second point of contention is France’s unique unemployment insurance program for entertainment workers and technicians. The program, known as Intermittence de Spectacle, supports entertainment workers on short-term contracts with unemployment benefits when they are between jobs or projects. To qualify, employees must be able to demonstrate that they have worked a certain number of hours during the fiscal year. The payments are funded by taxes paid by employers. But due to quirks in the regulations, many workers at French film festivals are excluded from unemployment benefits. Instead, they are hired and given short-term, flat-rate contracts. The collective is now lobbying to be included in the program, citing the inherent seasonal nature of the work.
“We demand that the organizations that employ us join a collective agreement that allows us to be hired under the status of intermittent show business workers and that our positions be integrated into the unemployment benefit system,” says today’s open Letter.
The festival has not yet commented on the strike action.