There is no specific legislation regulating labour relations for the cultural field. There is also no systematic monitoring of trends regarding cultural employment. The Central Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Croatia produces annual reports based on a very narrow definition of culture (see chapter 4.2.3) and contributes to the Eurostat cultural statistics according to their rules and regulations.
There is a unified system of salaries for those working in the public sector, including those employed in state-established cultural institutions and those working in the city or municipal cultural institutions. The Union of workers employed in the cultural sector (HSDK) includes workers in cultural institutions, the Ministry of Culture and Media, etc., and includes freelance artists as well. The rights of the cultural workers working in cultural institutions are covered through the Basic Collective Agreement for public service workers, Branch Collective Agreement for Workers in Cultural Institutions Paid from the Budget as well as through the Agreement on the Salary Calculation Base. The Croatian Union of Workers in Culture (HSDK) represents workers from cultural institutions and freelance artists in collective agreement negotiations with the Government. The Branch Collective Agreement for employees working in the cultural institutions paid from the state budget was signed in 2018 between the Government and HSDK.
There is a need to clarify the different position and rights of those who are employed in institutions vis-à-vis self-employed or freelance artists and cultural workers. It can be expected that this issue will be put on the agenda in the future by the old and new sector-specific professional associations (see 4.1.3). The relatively new Union of Screenwriters (SPID) was established in 2015 and immediately opened the topic of authors’ rights as labour rights. Another initiative relating to creative workers is the establishment of the Association of Independent Professionals in October 2014 that is based around authors involved in co-working practices, freelancing and similar. In addition, new stakeholders have emerged during 2019-2020 that explicitly target issues of unionisation, social and economic rights of artists and other cultural workers while putting pressure on legislators in this field (e.g. Platform ZA KRUH (For bread), Kulturnjaci initiative, Dosta je rezova!). The most recent initiative is coming from the Union of Journalists, who in 2022 have started discussions about unionisation of self-employed and freelancers in audiovisual and media sector.
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