The Decree on the Minimum Wage for Self-Employed in Culture follows the amendment to the Act on the Realisation of the Public Interest in Culture, which adopted this year, which enabled the collective regulation of the basic hourly rate of work of self-employed persons in culture.

"The minimum wages enshrined in the law are a historic achievement of workers' efforts for decent working conditions, and also in the Republic of Slovenia they protect workers from underpaid work and abuse. Until now, the precariousness did not have such a safeguard, which is why the passage of our law and regulation was such an important turning point in the fight for workers' rights. The message is clear: precarious, too, are workers, and precarats also have workers' rights. And this is everywhere, not only in culture, where we are setting new standards in the fight against precariousness," said Minister of Culture Dr Asta Vrečko.

State Secretary mag. Marko Rusjan added: "If a worker performs comparable work, he or she must be paid comparably, regardless of whether he or she is regularly employed or self-employed. This regulation puts an end to a period when the rights of all workers were being eroded by allowing employers to hire the self-employed in a culture as cheaper labour. From now on, all that matters is the quality of the work. Of course, the self-employed can always negotiate for higher fees. What is important, however, is that the state has set a fuse, a limit on the fee, below which no employer will be able to go. This is crucial, especially for all those who are just entering the labour market or, for various reasons, find it difficult to negotiate adequate remuneration." He also thanked the social partners for their constructive cooperation. The Government is legally obliged to obtain the opinion of representative trade unions of the self-employed in culture on the content of the regulation, in order to ensure the representation of workers' rights and social dialogue.

What the regulation does

The regulation defines in more detail the minimum hourly wage, the amount of initial remuneration, the comparability of professions and the method of reconciling remuneration. It also contains a list of comparable jobs between the self-employed and civil servants and a starting salary grade for the cultural self-employed.

Unlike regular employees, the self-employed do not have all the benefits of an employment relationship, such as holiday pay, paid transport and lunch, holidays, sick leave, and the like. Since they also pay for certain costs offered to the employee by his employer, the regulation introduces a weighting factor of 1.9. This will ensure effective comparability of remuneration between the self-employed and the regular employed. The aggravating factor represents the relative costs incurred by the self-employed in culture in ensuring their working conditions (e.g. renting an office or workshop, purchasing and depreciating equipment, work materials, etc.).

The base salary is therefore formed according to a formula where, on the basis of the salary grade, an hourly rate is calculated, which is multiplied by a weighting factor. As an alternative to this system, some professions in the field of books will be able to use regulated tariffs on copyright fields or verses, as it is an internationally established system of accounting for work.

The level of the minimum wage will be aligned with the level of wages in the public sector once a year. The so-called anti-dumping clause means that public institutions and public agencies will have to pay other precarious workers, such as those working through copyright contracts or ordinary sole proprietorships, to the same standards as the self-employed.

The regulation specifies a minimum initial amount of remuneration, which ensures adequate remuneration even for contracts of smaller volume or shorter duration. In practice, this will mean that in addition to the hours spent at the event, the photographer will also have paid hours when he processes or develops the photos; The actor will also be paid for the hours he spends in a mask or rehearsal, and not just on stage; The musician will also have paid for tone rehearsals and not just performances. No self-employed person in the culture will be able to be paid for less than eight hours of work, which prevents the fragmentation of orders, the reduction of hours by the employer and ensures minimum standards of pay.

The regulation will enter into force on the fifteenth day following its publication in the Official Journal. This will be immediately followed by the publication of the order in the first half of August. In order to facilitate the application and transparency of the new system, in accordance with the formula presented above, the exact hourly rate will be recorded in a nominal amount for each profession separately.

The Ministry of Culture is working to improve the position of the self-employed in culture

Self-employed in culture are an important stakeholder in the cultural ecosystem. These are painters, directors, writers, poets, translators, actors, singers and many other professions. The self-employed regularly cooperate with public institutions and non-governmental organizations and facilitate the development and accessibility of art throughout the country. The umbrella legislation in culture places them in the sphere of public interest. In order to be eligible for social security contributions from the budget, the self-employed in culture must prove the excellence and importance of their work every five years. Their economic and social status is unfavorable, which is the result of decades of not investing in the development of this sector. The precariousness of working conditions leads to precarious economic, social, housing and health conditions, which makes it difficult to produce quality art.

The Ministry of Culture is also striving to improve the situation of the self-employed through a number of other measures. In the last three years, it has, among other things, increased funds for their projects and work scholarships, increased compensation in the event of long-term sick leave by more than 50 percent, taken over the payment of compulsory health contributions, facilitated coping with the consequences of the epidemic, introduced new professions and revamped the procedure for obtaining status, and with the upcoming legal changes, it also proposes the introduction of a higher and sliding threshold, career dynamics with higher contributions according to years of work in culture, improving the conditions for claiming sick leave coverage, and many other innovations.