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Recommends To The Government The Creation Of A Labour, Fiscal Regime And Special Social Protection For Workers In The Performing Arts

Original Language Title: Recomenda ao Governo a criação de um regime laboral, fiscal e de protecção social especial para os trabalhadores das artes do espectáculo

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People's Party CDS-PP

Parliamentary Group

Assembly of the Republic-Palace of S. Bento-1249-068 Lisbon-Phone: 21391 9233-Fax: 21391 7456 Email: gp_pp@pp. parliamento.pt

DRAFT RESOLUTION NO. 48 /X

Recommends to the Government the establishment of a Laboral, Fiscal and Protection Regime

Special Social for the Workers of the Arts of the Spectacle

The Performing Arts has always been a key pillar of Culture and of

all cultural activity in Portugal. Currently, the importance of these activities is

by all recognized and, thankfully, this sector has been expanding, benefiting

of ever greater visibility. This development is mainly due to the huge

effort by all workers who, often facing great difficulties and

gigantic obstacles, dedicate themselves of soul and heart to the Arts and Spectacles, giving

thus an invaluable contribution to the strengthening and growth of the area of Culture

in Portugal.

So, as it is natural, the expansion of the Spectacle Arts sector itself

has been accompanied by a large increase in professionals working in such areas

diverse as the Music, Theatre or Dance, among others. Are professionals who if

they dedicate to an activity that demands a lot from each of them, and that in most of the

sometimes it has just as compensation the sense of personal achievement by the creation

artistic.

The professions connected to the Arts of the Spectacle are very diverse, but they have all

a very characteristic trait: its own specificity. Hence, it becomes every time

more urgent to trace the profile of these professions, and promote their proper

legal framework, with a view to an appropriate and fair social protection regime and

labour.

In the field of the Arts of the Spectacle, we are in most cases before

professions with very particular characteristics, namely:

 Irregular work schedules, often with predominance on the purposes of

week, holidays or at night (depending on the spectacles);

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 Alternance of periods of great activity with periods of little activity

or relative inactivity;

 Frequent recourse to polyvalence;

 In Some cases, fast wear and short duration of the profession itself (as, by

example, the case of the dancers and some circus performers);

 Permanent mobility of employment (multiplicity of employers and duration

limited of the contractual links).

Urge, therefore, to find for this sector solutions and special regimes, either in the

labour camp itself, either in the field of social security, or still in

tax matter.

Given the specificities of schedules, the permanent employment mobility, the

frequent recourse to polyvalence, and the temporary nature of most of these activities,

we can only conclude that the general rules of the Labor Code are insufficient for

ensure adequate protection for these professionals. The absence of rules

specific is potentiating the use of completely unsuitable instruments

to the situations in question. A good example of this, is the increasingly frequent use

of service contracts, to the detriment of contracts of employment.

In the case of social security, the existence of fast and short wear occupations

duration justifies, with all certainty, the existence of special schemes of aposting

early, as well as from own systems of accidents at work and diseases

professionals. We are facing careers that end much earlier than it is

customary, so the impact of a work accident can be much higher, and the

incapacity tables do not correspond to the specificities inherent in these

professions. In the latter case, it should be pointed out that there is already a specific regime of

remediation of the emerging damage from accidents at work of sports practitioners

professionals, which could be a good starting point for the establishment of a regime

similar for the professionals of the Arts of the Spectacle.

Finally, in the tax field, the alternation of periods of great activity with

periods of relative inactivity, as well as the short durability of working life,

should also be properly framed.

However, for the establishment of these particular schemes it is indispensable to

establishment of a system that allows to recognize the possession of basic skills and of

certain conditions that ensure fairness in access to these special regimes.

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The Assembly of the Republic resolves, in accordance with Article 166º (5) of the

Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, recommend to the Government that:

1-Until the end of the legislature, create the special schemes needed to promote a

labour, tax and social protection framework, which allows for more treatment

fair and equitable the workers of the Arts of the Spectacle.

2-For this purpose, it promotes the realization of a study that makes the diagnosis concerning

to the legal situation of the workers of the Arts of the Spectacle, specifically in the

Areas of Social Security, labour law, accidents at work and

occupational diseases, vocational training and the tax framing of these

activities.

3-Discuss this diagnosis with all representatives of the sector, so that the

your contributions and suggestions can be included in the findings of the diagnosis.

Lisbon, June 24, 2005

The Deputies of the CDS-PP,