AEMI Sign-on Statement for Record of Senate HELP Committee Hearing on Portable Benefits
July 17, 2025
The Honorable Bill Cassidy Chairman,
U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
428 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Bernie Sanders Ranking Member,
U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
428 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Chairman Cassidy and Ranking Member Sanders,
The below listed Arts, Entertainment, and Media Industries (AEMI) coalition unions within the Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO (DPE) urge the committee to reject any legislation that would make it easier for employers to misclassify workers or evade their responsibilities under federal and state workplace laws.
The AEMI coalition consists of national unions that represent professionals in the arts, entertainment, and media industries. By virtue of its size and scope of coverage, the AEMI is the leading voice in the labor movement on public policy in the arts, entertainment, and media industries. The AEMI unions’ members include actors, cinematographers, choreographers, dancers, directors, musicians, photographers, recording artists, stage managers, singers, technicians, stagehands, and other crafts. They help power a sector of the economy that regularly generates four percent of the United States’ gross domestic product (GDP), creates a positive trade balance, and employs more than five million people.
The vast majority of AEMI union members are no different than working Americans in any other sector. They are everyday employees who depend on finding work in the businesses of others in order to put food on the table, pay next month’s rent, and support their families.
What distinguishes AEMI union members is that most work gig-based employment. A union creative professional is likely to have many employers in a year, and may even have multiple employers in the same week, due to the short duration of a single production or performance. In each of these short-term, W-2 jobs, AEMI union members will receive pay and high quality portable benefits at each union-covered job they work.
AEMI union members are proud that they have helped build a sector through collective bargaining that demonstrates people can work in flexible W-2 jobs for multiple employers that provide family-supporting pay and high-quality portable benefits like health care, defined benefit pensions, and training funds that are consistent from job to job.
AEMI union members are deeply concerned about efforts to misclassify employees as independent contractors. While protected by strong union contracts, union creative professionals still rely on proper employee classification for their rights under employment, civil rights, and workers’ compensation laws.
Short-term “gig” work is not a new phenomenon. AEMI union members have been working gig jobs for over a century. Creative professionals know as well as anyone that employers can provide portable benefits and properly classify W-2 employees in industries where short-term work is an inherent industry feature. They also know that their industries are better off because workers have a voice through collective bargaining.
Instead of finding ways to limit the rights of working Americans, the below signed unions urge this Committee to pursue legislation like the PRO Act that would empower more professionals to negotiate portable benefit plans and other innovations with their employers that lead to long-lasting, successful industries.
If you have any questions, please contact DPE’s Assistant to the President/Legislative Director, Michael Wasser, at mwasser@dpeaflcio.org.
Sincerely,
Actors’ Equity Association (Equity)
American Federation of Musicians (AFM)
American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA)
American Guild of Variety Artists (AGVA)
Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO (DPE)
Directors Guild of America (DGA)
Guild of Italian American Actors (GIAA)
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE)
Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU)
Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA)
Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC)