Slaves or co-workers?
An overview of results of the public-works programme in museums
MúzeumCafé 41.
Organised by the National Institute for Culture (NIC) and the Hungarian Digital Archive (HDA), several thousand public-works employees have appeared in museums. Was this just a pre-election gimmick about the employment rate, which is ineffectual and expensive (costing more than three billion forints), even a government adventure involving risks to security and artwork protection, or one of the bases for the good functioning of public collections in the future? The cultural public-works programme involving about 4000 people was launched on 1 November 2013. Assistants numbering 134 for six months, and 160 chief coordinators and 3706 public-works staff for five months were to be employed up to 30 April. According to 31 March data, including those who dropped out 4401 people had participated in the project. During five months 392 people withdrew, i.e. approximately 10%. The vast majority of those, according to NIC director Magdolna Závogyán, by means of the programme successfully returned to the primary labour market. The project cost around 2.5 billion forints, which relative to the time period is half the amount public collections receive from the budget. Of this, wage costs were 2.2 billion, and part of the remaining amount, 93 million, was the cost of the compulsory 46 hours of training for people involved. The project included mainly women (74%), the majority under 40. Thirty-nine per cent were under 25, another 39% were between 26 and 40, while 13% were between 41 and 50, with those over 50 accounting for 9%. Regarding qualifications, a secondary school-leaving certificate was essential, thus every participant had the qualification of secondary education as a minimum. Twenty-one per cent of the participants had attended college, while 9% had graduated from university.