Research: Slovenian Cultural and Creative Workers 2024/25

Preface

From research to actual improvements!

Every researcher wishes that the study in which they and their coworkers have invested months of thought and effort may come to life. By ‘coming to life’ we don’t mean rows of academics citing it in their articles. Not in the least. A study only comes to life when its results are taken up by the very people who have contributed to it with their experiences and insights. When those who are active in the sectors continue to use it in their work. When workers utilize it as a device that supports them with new insights, evidence and expressions, helping them to better understand the work process and their position in it. And when it offers workers the potential tools to improve their work conditions.

In 2020, two weeks into the outbreak of the epidemic, when we began preparing our first investigation into the state of the cultural and creative sectors, we hardly expected that this Poligon research paper would become one of the most commonly used studies in the sector. The first four studies were conducted in the period when work in the sector was extremely difficult and uncertain, when nobody could predict what the next brutally restrictive measure against the epidemic will bring – or rather, take away. In our fourth study we wrote: “The wounds in the two sectors run much deeper and were not inflicted by the epidemic alone. This last crisis merely accentuated them further. The chronic precariousness of the two sectors, the grinding poverty and – discussed here for the first time – the disturbing practices of public cultural institutions are all problems predating the virus. And yes, everyone in the two sectors knows practically everything about all these issues. But what is new in our study is that, for the first time, these problems are being translated into numbers so that someone who is not in our circle of confidants but feels the responsibility and has the (political) power to tackle these problematic practices can put themselves in the shoes of workers in the cultural and creative sectors.”

This call to use the research data as a concrete tool for improving the state of the sector was realized through various circles and actions, most notably with the establishment of the Union for creativity and culture ZASUK. Our findings that four out of ten workers were not paid or were paid very poorly for their most recent work with a public cultural institution, became the starting point of the union’s negotiation with the Ministry of culture of Slovenia for the Zasuk minimum wage. After three years, in July 2025, the unions ZASUK, Glosa and SVIZ succeeded in the implementation of a regulation that prevents unpaid work for references, putting an end to three decades of exploitative practices by public institutions.

At this point it is necessary to emphasise that although the study was first and most commonly adopted by self-employed workers in the sectors, all five of its reports include all the forms of worker in our sectors: those who work as external contract workers, those employed in public institutions, municipalities or the ministry, as well as workers who create for private companies in completely commercial fields. The 22 subfields of the sectors unite a multitude of professions, however they also share many common denominators. It is precisely the heterogeneity of the sectors and professions included in the study that shows a blueprint of how similar studies could be conducted in various industries, as these studies prove extremely necessary and important for a holistic diagnosis of the situation, while also being useful for planning sector-wide strategies.

This current fifth study is free of the numerous topics which were specific to the epidemic, while longitudinally still measuring all the main variables which allow us to follow key industry trends and the interlacing of work and life of those employed in the sectors. At the same time the study opens up a space for themes that, due to other priorities, we were not able to include in the previous reports. Thus this research paper delves deeper into the analysis of the influence of class on cultural and creative production, a theme we began exploring in the fourth study. It is also our first investigation into the identity dilemmas faced by workers in the sectors, as well as an attempt to identify the potential for labour organising. We break down the various practices of the ministry, public cultural institutions and agencies in more detail than we did in previous studies, as public cultural policies and their implementers are the key navigators of cultural and creative production.

This study will certainly not be the last in Poligon’s series of investigations into our sectors. The feedback loop between the research, the users and the decision makers has been established and is proven to work. Time will tell if the fifth study will, similarly to the previous four, bring important improvements in practice. To bring it back to the beginning: a study truly comes to life only when its findings are taken up by the people who have contributed to it with their experiences and insights.

Eva Matjaž
head of research

Recommendations

There can be no doubt that many things have been set into motion on the systemic level during the surveying period of the last five studies. The reform of the Act on the realisation of public interest in culture in early autumn and the achievement of the Zasuk minimum wage which was implemented in the summer have brought a legal basis for the improvement of the working conditions of many workers in the sectors. For now these solutions are still just words on paper and time will tell how successfully they will pour over into practice. We will test this in the following sixth study.

For now the existing data shows that without stricter legal provisions and thorough supervision of their implementation, public institutions will not automatically cease with their unethical practices. Upon revealing the shameful exploitation of external contract workers from the side of public institutions in the spring of 2022, we expected that this will already trigger some improvements. That didn’t happen – three years later the share of unpaid work for references remains the same: every fourth collaboration of workers with a public institution remains unpaid or severely underpaid. It is clear that despite public revelations and pressure, there will be no improvement without legal prosecution. In the following year to two years the key issue will therefore be the supervision of institutional payment practices according to the Zasuk minimum wage by all the entities which have power and levers of pressure: the Ministry of culture of Slovenia, inspection services and unions, with individual and class action lawsuits against offenders also playing an important role. This is the only recipe by which public institutions, agencies and funds, municipalities and the state will begin to act in accordance with the written law. Only through consistent supervision and proper sanctions can the thirty year old business practice of non-payment by public institutions in the sectors be thoroughly eradicated. 

But the exploitative business culture – or rather non-culture – in the sectors, is not only a problem of until recently insufficient legal foundations and lingering inconsistency of supervision over the work of public institutions. An urgent problem that is overwhelmingly present in the sectors is individualism. The predominant elitist mentality among cultural and creative workers raises concerns. Many understand themselves to be somehow more valuable or better than others, more unique or extraordinary, and perceive the term ‘worker’ to be beneath them. This very haughtiness is the source of accelerated exploitation. Superior, one of kind, incomparable… yet at the same time less connected and thus much weaker in relation to employers. The paradox is even greater when we measure the low levels of membership in trade unions and professional associations and then compare that to the high level of conviction that labour organising importantly contributes to better working conditions. This could mean that the majority of workers are counting on others to fight for improvements, so they don’t need to be active themselves. But only when workers begin to see themselves as one in a multitude of other workers (and not only in their own, but also in other sectors!), and begin to connect with each other en masse, will there be a foundation that can efficiently stave off future forms of exploitation and ensure better working conditions.  

Although this study points to an improvement of financial inflows compared to three years ago, life still proves to be miserable for many in the sectors. The high prices that all residents, not just workers in our sectors, are facing, eat up the otherwise higher incomes at a faster rate than previously. It is therefore no surprise that more workers are thinking of leaving the sectors than at any point since we began surveying them. The first to leave are those with less privileged backgrounds (and many among them have already left in the previous five years). It is not the less talented who leave, but those whose families can’t provide them with their own real estate or home in which they can live with lower expenses. As we pointed out in the previous study, creatives are increasingly those who come from privileged backgrounds. This also means that in the long term, the themes that will be discussed and researched in this field will be increasingly limited to those that are relevant to elite Slovenian social circles. And do we want this increasingly narrow-minded creative output to be the one that defines Slovenia’s cultural and creative scenes?

The state and municipalities are those that can, to a certain extent, interrupt this trend by implementing more sensitive and inclusive support mechanisms. A thorough analysis of public funding calls shows that many things can be improved. It is important that responsible institutions finally begin setting transparent timelines for funding calls and also consistently stick to the announced deadlines for publishing results. This is one of the more problematic aspects of Slovenia’s public funding of the cultural and creative sectors. Workers who are granted funds should be able to plan their work processes in a normal way instead of being left to the arbitrariness of institutions which consistently push back timelines of funding calls and their results without any consequences. The icing on the cake of these widely spread poor practices are the delays of payment, as surveys show that public institutions, municipalities and the state are late to pay in 30% of all detected cases. This is proof of the arrogance which is present in public institutions and which places already financially struggling creatives into even deeper economic hardship.

Last but not least we would like to emphasise a message which has been overlooked in all our previous studies: the narrative that workers in the sectors are mostly dependent on public funding must be changed. This is simply not true and has not been true since we began surveying. Invoices for public funds were issued in only 8,5% of cases. In 2024 more than half of business entities didn’t work for any publicly funded projects at all. The connection to public funding is one of the largest and deeply rooted myths, which has never been longitudinally backed by real evidence. 

To sum up the recommendations in one sentence: it is vital to establish consistent supervision over the implementation of the legislative solutions for improving the situation of workers in the sectors, as well as improving the other business practices of public institutions, while actively addressing the elitist mindset of the majority of workers in the sectors, reminding them that glorifying their exceptionality actually results in less power to achieve key changes. 

Less individualism, more workers’ organising!