In their immense thirst for culture, the authorities found another method to fault the artists: Emergency Ordinance 63, published in the Official Gazette on July 2, 2010. This new law says, rightfully in theory, that local public administrations must reduce the number of employees. That is, that they need to reduce the number comrade minded ladies at the counters who have turned bureaucracy of the clerks into art. But in their great wisdom, law makers recalled that artists are also employed by municipalities and therefore theaters should also reduce its staff by 30%. This is all the more abhorrent as theaters have new position blocked anyway for four years now and have been working in damage condition, with a minimum of personnel. And if we were to also consider the measure to force employees of cultural institutions to take between 6 and 8 days of unpaid leave every month and the recent salary cut by 25%, than we would not be surprised if they soon asked actors to bring their own money in.
This is what happens when the theaters, at least in the capital city, are completely full, sometimes too full for what they have to show. The spectators love their actors and, crisis or not, they devotedly go to the theater. There are performances with sold-out tickets within five minutes or performance where they only sell four tickets only, ion the old principle “to have enough for everyone”. Mayor Oprescu met the directors of the theater under the protection of the Bucharest City Hall and told the managers that this is not really a question of money, that it is not costs that should be reduced, but the number of employees. That is to say, into clear Romanian, as a fact, this measure IS NOT NECESSARY, but since the IMF required personnel cuts, IMF shall get personnel cuts.
The word of the FUND is the law and taken literally. Directors rightly consider that theaters will not be able to function in these circumstances. Or that, in order to play their performances, all who got the sack according to Ordinance 63 will be recalled on more money, on royalty contracts and pay per performance. Any normal director prefers to pay an actor a salary of 2,000 lei per month than 500 per performance. And as this is Absurdistan, the savings made by letting go 30% of the personnel will soon be exceeded by the costs of copyright contracts and outsourcing services. But there will be no problem because, as mayor Oprescu claims, money doesn’t matter; what matters if miming that we did what the Fund requested. Only that not all municipalities are as generous and rich as the Bucharest one. Some mayors even found in letting go artists a lifebuoy for civil servants. To be more precise, they thought of cutting up to 40-50% of the theater personnel, since artists are not “producers” anyway, in order to keep their secretaries. While others, more bent for business, decided to close some cultural institutions completely, as we’re in a crisis and we must deal with the serious things, instead of listening to jokes, songs and seeing performances.
The situation might seem even funny to a point, if this was not actually about people, their children, and their income. And if the government wants to exterminate artists at any price, it may find more efficient and less painful methods. A reading of the “Mein Kampf” might prove useful in this respect for Mr. Boc.
