Reimagining Federal Support for the Arts and Public Media
The nonprofit arts and public media enjoy broad, bipartisan public support because they power local economies in every state and make it possible for Americans of all means, geographies, and abilities to have access to high-quality artistic and educational content. Federal support through the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) has been essential to the sector’s success, and reimagining federal support will ensure its sustainable future.
Many members of our unions earn their living working on nonprofit productions and programs that receive funding from the NEA, NEH, and CPB. Even more employed now in the commercial sector established their careers through federally-supported work in the nonprofit cultural sector. We are committed to the nonprofit arts and public media because we know firsthand its economic and cultural power.
Informed by the experiences of our members, we believe that reimagining federal support for the arts and public media will require strengthening labor protections and, not only increasing NEA, NEH, and CPB funding, but also including a greater worker voice in grantmaking and modernizing grantmaking rules.
Federal funding for the arts, humanities, and public media must include strong labor protections
Taxpayer money should encourage high-road employment practices that raise industry standards and strengthen local economies. Strong, uniform labor protections and workplace safety requirements are central to ensuring that all people can pursue a career with fair pay and benefits. These requirements should protect all people employed on federally-supported cultural and news programming, and they must provide effective remedies to deter low-road business practices.
Necessary actions:
Strengthen the NEA/NEH prevailing wage requirement (20 U.S.C. §§ 954(m)) by providing for civil monetary penalties in cases when employers violate the law and allowing for a private right of action.
Modernize 29 C.F.R. Part 505 to reflect current industry employment practices and changes in union names.
Improve staffing requirements for CPB grantees in consultation with stakeholders, including public media professionals and their unions, to address stations’ unsustainable reliance on outsourcing and temporary employees.
Professionals working in the nonprofit arts and public media must have a voice in grantmaking
Union professionals contribute immensely to the quality, success, and bipartisan popularity of the nonprofit arts and public media, and they offer an important perspective on how federal arts funding can be used to greatest effect. Yet, too often, nonprofit arts employers, managers at CPB-funded stations, and producers of CPB-funded programming ask the members of our unions to do more for less, counting on their commitment to their employer and craft. Even then, these employers cut costs at the expense of our members and quality jobs. Omitting the workers who make nonprofit arts and media successful from the grantmaking process shuts out an essential voice; runs counter to the community-minded mission of publicly supported arts, humanities, and media; and erodes standards for all professionals in the sector.
Necessary action:
Prioritize seats for worker advocates on the National Council on the Arts, the National Council on the Humanities, and the CPB’s Board of Directors.
Federal grantmaking must be modernized to sustain employment in the nonprofit arts and public media
Sustainable careers in the nonprofit arts and public media requires that the employing organizations receive sufficient support to sustain their operations, not just productions or special projects. The current approach of smaller-dollar, project-specific federal grants does not provide the level of certainty and sustainability that employers need to support the infrastructure necessary to launch and maintain productions and thus employ our members across seasons. In public media, station funding formulas have shifted money away from the larger stations where union members work to smaller stations that have little potential for an employment impact. NEA, NEH, and CPB grants should take into account employment impact and be accompanied by strong labor protections that will help nonprofit institutions and public media stations maintain their roles as critical economic drivers for communities across the United States.
Necessary action:
Authorize larger-dollar general operating grants through the NEA, NEH, and CPB with a worker-centered approach to grantmaking.
For questions, please contact DPE Assistant to the President/Legislative Director Michael Wasser at mwasser@dpeaflcio.org
A Policy Agenda for Advancing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in the Arts, Entertainment, and Media Industries
118th Congress
As unions, we hold a fundamental belief that diversity is a strength. We work inside and outside the traditional collective bargaining process to create more and better opportunities for underrepresented people. Smart policy solutions aimed at creating diverse talent pipelines, incentivizing diversity in hiring, and supporting collective bargaining will help our workplaces and our industries move forward.
Ensure That Creators Can Pursue Middle Class Careers
All creative professionals must be able to pursue a career with fair pay and benefits. Otherwise careers in the arts, entertainment, and media industries will be limited to a narrow, non-inclusive set of people – notably those who can afford to hold out for the promise of a future payday that may never arrive. Creative professionals must be able to enforce their workplace rights, including the right to join together in union and negotiate collectively with their employers. Through collective bargaining, people of color and women have raised their pay, narrowed the racial wage gap,[1] and established mechanisms for addressing intentional and unintentional racism in their workplaces.[2] Creative professionals also need strong copyright protections because they depend on the sale of legitimate content for their pay and benefits. Too often creative professionals of historically marginalized communities are not able to realize the full economic value of their intellectual property, an impediment to maintaining a career that utilizes their unique talents and abilities.
Congress should:
Pass the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act;
Pass the Performing Artist Tax Parity Act;
Pass the Restoring Justice for Workers Act;
Pass the American Music Fairness Act; and
Support copyright reforms aimed at combating content theft, such as reforming Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to restore balance between content creators and online platforms and ensure that creative professionals can earn a fair return for their work.
Address Systemic Barriers to Careers in the Arts, Entertainment, and Media
Every person should have the opportunity to pursue a career in the arts, entertainment, and media industries. As unions, we work through the collective bargaining process to ensure that our employers respect the equal rights of all in their workplaces. Still more must be done to remove the systemic, societal barriers that hold too many people back to help ensure that our industries can fully reflect the mosaic of America.
Congress should:
Pass the Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair (CROWN) Act;
Pass the Equality Act;
Protect the right of people to make their own reproductive healthcare decisions; and
Provide term-limited federal financial support to ensure that workplaces are safe and accessible for all creative professionals.
Increase Federal Arts Funding and Establish DEI Objectives for Grant Recipients
Through grants, seed money, and technical support, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) ensure that Americans of all means, geographies, and abilities have access to artistic and educational content. The NEA, NEH, and CPB also help bolster local economies and put creative professionals to work on nonprofit productions and performances, including members of our unions. These gigs have also provided entry points to careers in the for-profit side of our industries for many of our members through the opportunity to develop skills, experience, and professional connections. Congress can help ensure that more of these career opportunities are available to people who are underrepresented in our industries.
Congress should:
Increase funding for the NEA, NEH, and CPB;
Work with stakeholders, including unions, to develop diversity hiring and reporting objectives for grant recipients, such as requiring that applicants provide a three-year look-back report on recruitment, hiring, and promotion; and
Establish an incubator grant program to help underrepresented people pursue creative projects and make connections with industry mentors.
Leverage Federal Tax Incentives to Encourage Diverse Hiring
Recognizing the boost provided to state and local economies, Congress has established tax benefits for American-based film, television, and live entertainment productions. Tax incentives are important because they create work opportunities for our members that may otherwise go abroad. We know from the state level that tax policy can also offer a “carrot” approach for our industries’ employers to hire more inclusive casts and crew.
Congress should:
Follow the lead of states like Illinois, New Jersey, and New York to identify effective diversity requirements for federal tax incentives that will spur more inclusive hiring in film, television, and live entertainment.
If you have any questions, please contact DPE Assistant to the President/Legislative Director Michael Wasser at mwasser@dpeaflcio.org
[1] McNicholas et al. (2020). “Why unions are good for workers - especially in a crisis like COVID-19.” Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute. Available here: https://www.epi.org/publication/why-unions-are-good-for-workers-especially-in-a-crisis-like-covid-19-12-policies-that-would-boost-worker-rights-safety-and-wages/.
[2] “Toolkit: Advancing Racial Justice in the Professional Workplace.” (2020). Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO. Available here: https://www.dpeaflcio.org/other-publications/toolkit-advancing-racial-justice-in-the-professional-workplace