Economic Support Needed for Creative Professional Impacted by COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to hurt the arts, entertainment, and media industries, and the need for continued economic support for impacted creative professionals, including members of our unions, only grows more urgent. In normal times, these industries help power a sector that generates more than 4 percent of the country’s GDP and employs more than four million people. However, to date, this sector has lost an estimated $14.1 billion in economic activity due to COVID-19[1], and losses will continue as many theaters, soundstages, and performance venues remain dark well into next year. While some have continued to work, the industries’ employment rates are well below normal levels. With their work occurring in public venues and on job sites requiring close personal contact, many creative professionals will likely be some of the last workers able to return safely to their jobs due to expected longer-term social distancing requirements.

Protect professionals designated as essential workers and those returning to the workplace  

·      Require the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to issue an Emergency Temporary Standard to protect workers from occupational exposure to infectious diseases, including COVID-19.

·      For any professionals designated as essential or returning to the workplace: 

o    Guarantee access to employer-provided personal protective equipment.

o    Require employers to implement and enforce workplace social distancing policies that limit exposure to COVID-19. 

o    Require employers keep professionals who become infected with COVID-19 on payroll, remain responsible for affected professionals’ health care costs, and cover any family care costs accrued by affected professionals as a result of treating a COVID-19 diagnosis.

o    Require hazard pay as additional compensation for professionals deemed essential who are working outside their homes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

o    Provide flexibility or alternative work options for professionals deemed essential but who live with immunocompromised individuals.

Extend and expand COVID-19 economic support programs

·         Extend the CARES Act’s unemployment insurance provisions, including the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, through July 1, 2021.

·         Ensure professionals earning both W2 and 1099/self-employment income receive the full benefits of the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program.

·         Expand the Families First Coronavirus Response Act’s paid leave provisions to professionals working for companies with 500 or more employees.

Preserve access to affordable, quality healthcare

·         Subsidize 100 percent of a person’s COBRA costs for one year.

·         Extend COBRA eligibility to 36 months.

·         Provide economic support for multiemployer health plans that are waiving cost-sharing or keeping ineligible members on their plans for reasons related to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Protect the pension funds of creative professionals

·         Allow multiemployer pension plans to: 

o    Freeze zone status for at least one year, based on provisions similar to the Worker, Retiree, and Employer Recovery Act of 2008;

o    Smooth investment and contribution base unit (“CBU”) losses in the funding standard account, and investment losses in the development of the actuarial value of assets, following provisions similar to the Pension Relief Act of 2010.

·         Institute a special partition program at the PBGC to deal with critically endangered multiemployer plans without increasing burdens on healthy pension plans.

·         Shore up the PBGC through government funding, not the robbing of healthy pension plans.

Provide economic support for organizations in the arts, entertainment, and media industries that gets people back to work

·         Appropriate $9 billion in emergency supplemental funding to ensure nonprofit arts organizations and public broadcasting stations can continue operations, keep people employed, and be ready to immediately resume productions when it is safe to do so. 

o    The $4 billion should be administered by the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. No less than 60% of the $4 billion should be in the form of direct grants. Any federal money distributed by a state or local arts agency must comply with the conditions of a direct grant. 

o    For live theater employers unable to receive federal arts funding, ensure access to low-interest loans for the purpose of operational continuity, continued employment, and the ability to resume productions when it is safe to do so.

o    Any organization accessing supplemental federal arts funding or a low-interest loan must attest that it will adhere to conditions no less stringent than Sec. 4003(c)(3)(D)(i) of the CARES Act. (e.g. minimum employment requirements, layoff prohibitions, outsource/offshore prohibitions, non-abrogation of collective bargaining agreements, union neutrality, etc.) 

·         Extend and enhance the Section 181 film tax deduction.

·         Restore the long-standing business tax deduction for live entertainment event ticket purchases.

Protect the collection and dissemination of news and information

·         Provide temporary payroll support for people working in print, radio, television, and digital-native news to keep them on the job at a time when news is essential.

·         Appropriate and direct federal advertising dollars for programs where community outreach is needed for spending on local media.

Ensure tax fairness for middle-class creative professionals

·         Allow middle-class creative professionals to deduct necessary business expenses by including the Performing Artist Tax Parity Act of 2019, bipartisan legislation that would update the Qualified Performing Artist tax deduction.

Prohibit post-employment restrictive covenants for journalists and other media employees until December 31, 2021

·         To ensure journalists and other media employees are able to find and accept new work during the COVID-19 pandemic, prohibit employers from enforcing any anti-competitive restrictive covenant.

Provide fair access to government economic support for all nonprofits 

·         Allow all nonprofits, including labor unions, access to the Paycheck Protection Program, not just 501(c)3 organizations.

If you have any questions, please contact DPE Assistant to the President/Legislative Director, Michael Wasser at (202) 638-0320 ext. 11 or mwasser@dpeaflcio.org

[1]  Americans for the Arts. (2020) “The Economic Impact of Coronavirus (COVID-19) on the Arts and Cultural Sector.” Retrieved on November 9, 2020 from https://www.americansforthearts.org/by-topic/disaster-preparedness/the-economic-impact-of-coronavirus-on-the-arts-and-culture-sector.