A year without events and income: the world of live entertainment descends on 20 squares in Italy

The entertainment world descends on twenty squares across Italy exactly one year after the pandemic containment measures that have sanctioned the closure of all live performance venues: thousands of industry workers are out of work and without income. Tuesday, Feb. 23, will in fact be a day of demonstrations, from Palermo to Turin, Milan, Milan, Rome, Naples, Catania, Ancona, Bologna, Barletta, Bari, Cosenza, Reggio Calabria, Cremona, Padua, Trieste, Genoa, Piacenza, Livorno, promoted by a wide network of live performance professionals. Workers in the sector will call for the convening of an Inter-Ministerial Table with the presence of the Ministry of Labor, the MEF and the Ministry of Culture to involve all actors and address each issue with the direct protagonists.

Below is the document toward the February 23, 2021 mobilization.
Feb. 23, 2020 - Feb. 23, 2021: exactly one year since the total blockade of the entertainment industry.

For hundreds of thousands of workers in the industry, a year of profound precariousness, unemployment, total lack of prospects. So many workers are barely surviving with the handouts of those buffer measures - completely insufficient - adopted by the government; while many others remain empty-handed because they are still stranded in the meshes of the bureaucracy that has not, however, untied the knots related to the rejection of legitimate claims.

It is clear that the path of one-time bonuses is not the right one: structural and universal income and support measures are needed to deal with a crisis of such magnitude. We recall once again that the performing arts and culture, among the hardest hit sectors, count hundreds of thousands of workers who need concrete protections where the horizon of vague stability shows no sign of revealing itself.

To date, the Tables of Discussion with Institutions have not been reconvened, live performance venues remain closed, and we have come to the brink. Adding to the health crisis is the current government crisis, thanks to which even the scarce funds earmarked for future Ristori decrees are in danger of disappearing or, at best, being further delayed.

To date, every successive government has operated to satisfy the interests of large entities, big business and foundations. The time has come to reverse the trend: the state must act to protect workers. The survival and dignity of hundreds of thousands of people cannot depend on the intemperance of political power. In this year we have never stopped fighting for structural income and support measures, for total reform of our industry, for the safety of workers and women workers. And we have no intention of stopping.

We demand that the following urgent and necessary demands be taken up by the relevant institutions:

- Immediate release and consequent disbursement of the outstanding reliefs (DL reliefs 5) during these weeks of governmental instability;

- timely convening of an Interministerial Table involving workers in the entertainment and culture sector, at which the Ministry of Labor, Ministry of Economic Development and Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities would sit;

- implementation of a now necessary structural reform, both formal and factual, of the sector that truly protects not only large entities and large companies but also and above all women workers and workers;

- design and implementation of all measures, economic and otherwise, related to security protocols, necessary to ensure a true and total restart of the sector;

- concretization of measures aimed at financing and supporting small and medium-sized performing arts and culture entities, which a year after the public entertainment freeze are in danger of closing and no longer being able to fulfill their fundamental role related to proximity culture throughout our country.

A year without events and income: the world of live entertainment descends on 20 squares in Italy

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.