Mexico City’s Cultural Sector Calls for Urgent Labor Reforms
Mexico City, January 20 – Cultural workers in Mexico City are calling for urgent labor reforms to address the precarious conditions faced by artists and cultural managers. During the first day of the “Parliament of Participation in the Cultural Life of Mexico City” at the local Congress, stakeholders emphasized the need for legal regulation of relationships between the state, cultural enterprises, and cultural workers. They also urged the establishment of mechanisms to measure the sector’s economic impact.
Precarious Conditions Highlighted by Cultural Workers
Alejandra Aguilar Domínguez, a theater artist and cultural manager, stated, “Mexico City is one of the cultural bastions of the world. It is not possible for our artists and cultural workers to live in absolute precarity, without access to basic rights, despite being one of the most productive sectors of our society.” She highlighted that cultural and creative enterprises are not adequately defined in relevant laws, leading to a vacuum that leaves thousands of cultural workers vulnerable.
Aguilar Domínguez presented data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi), revealing that the average monthly salary for an actor in Mexico is 3,870 pesos, for 26.7 hours of work per week. This figure is significantly below the 2024 minimum monthly wage of 6,223 pesos. “We are talking about more than 2.8 million people nationwide, in their prime productive age, with higher education, forced to perform 2 to 2.5 roles within their profession to survive, without even reaching the minimum wage, let alone legal benefits or social security,” she added.
Despite programs for artists to register with the IMSS as independent workers, Aguilar Domínguez pointed out, “it is evident that when you invoice less than a thousand pesos a month for your work, covering fees above the urgent and immediate makes no sense… Therefore, the relationships between the State, cultural enterprises, and art and culture workers must be regulated by law.”
Legislative Initiatives and Calls for Social Protection
During the event, initiatives were presented to reform provisions of the Cultural Promotion Law of Mexico City and the Law of Cultural Rights of Inhabitants and Visitors of Mexico City. These reforms aim to establish labor rights for cultural workers, regulate collaboration between the state and cultural enterprises, and create mechanisms for measuring the cultural sector’s economic impact. These initiatives have been forwarded to the Cultural Rights Commission.
Actor Alejandro Calva stressed, “There is no possible cultural life when those who sustain it work in precarity. We cannot continue to celebrate functions, festivals, and attendance figures while it is normalized that actresses, actors, directors, playwrights, scenic designers, and technical personnel work without clear contracts, with simulations, without social security, and in many cases, outside the Federal Labor Law. Public funding cannot continue to be sustained on informality.”
Calva emphasized the urgent need to review the figure of intermittent work in the performing arts. “Labor intermittency cannot continue to be an argument to annul rights. Models are needed that recognize the specificity of artistic work and, at the same time, provide certainty, social protection, and effective compliance with the law.”
Actress Wendy de los Cobos echoed Calva’s sentiments, adding, “We do not have any support. Generally, we launch projects in schools, in theaters, and in different spaces where we have to be the ones to finance the project, to seek sponsorships, to find a way for someone to contribute to achieve our cultural proposals.”
Actor Carlos Roberto Duarte also spoke, stating, “It is time for art and culture to stop being ornaments and become urgent tools to reconfigure and re-establish the social fabric, because the social fabric is not a nice metaphor for our narratives… Art and culture work where politics falls short, because they translate conflict without shouting partisan slogans or taking credit for what artists do; they name what hurts us without turning it into propaganda for anyone and generate something fundamental: belonging before obedience… It is time to show that they are worthy of the people they represent.”
Jesús Sesma Suárez, president of the Board of Directors of the local Congress, acknowledged the shortcomings, saying, “Forgive me, forgive me for still being in debt to culture, not only in Mexico City but in our country. I am convinced that we have unprotected culture.”
Key Proposals from the Session:
- Clear definitions of cultural workers.
- Recognition of cultural enterprises and their participation.
- Conditions to ensure free access to art.
- Measurement of the economic impact of culture.
- Incubators and professionalization spaces.
