My name is Bethany, and two months ago I became a mother for the first time. For the last five years I have had the privilege of working in the film and TV industry in New York. I say privilege because the last five years working in this industry have been some of the most tumultuous in recent entertainment history. Between navigating work through the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Writers Guild strike, and the SAG-AFTRA strike, work has become incredibly difficult to attain and remains this way.
Working in the industry is a chaotically fast-paced, yet rewarding job – a job that I love and have spent years training and honing my craft for. I take so much pride in being able to say that I have worked on popular and award winning series such as “Only Murders in the Building,” and “American Horror Story.” However, the nature of this work unfairly excludes me and many of my colleagues from qualifying for New York Paid Family Leave, despite always paying into it each paycheck. I have watched many families in my industry jump through hoops and struggle to qualify for the necessary requirements to receive those benefits in a traditional manner. Many of us have failed and have given up altogether. This is now a problem that I personally face as I begin my journey in starting my family.
Because the nature of my work is fast-paced, and often temporary, my jobs usually last anywhere from a few weeks to a few months at a time. My employer changes frequently and so does my pay house company. It is extremely rare for a production to run long enough for someone like me to hit the 26 consecutive week requirement for paid family leave. After weeks of research and back and forth with multiple previous employers, I have come to find that none of my employers will allow me to even file for paid family leave because the 26 consecutive week requirement makes me ineligible for the program.
This whole process has me feeling not only frustrated, but entirely abandoned by the state and the companies that I have worked so hard to provide outstanding work for many years. Members of my industry, other contractors and multi-W2 holding employees alike, are all familiar with this oversight. We are taxed equally to “typical” career-having or salaried employees, yet we are prevented from accessing those same benefits.
In a study published in 2021 by The Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME), Commissioner Anne del Castillo noted that the Film and TV industry accounts for 185,00 jobs in New York, totaling in at around $18 billion paid out in wages, and making New York almost $82 billion in total economic output in 2019. Considering the long and proud relationship New York has had with the film and TV industry, one would think the state would continue to do everything in its collective power to aid and nurture the growth of such a profitable industry. If it’s truly an industry you wish to maintain and ultimately nurture into an even larger success, then New York needs to provide better care for the people making it all possible, especially women and, more specifically, women who plan on starting a family.
“Finding out I would not be able to access the support that I know that I should be entitled to was crushing. This is supposed to be one of the most exciting times of my life but, instead, I am struggling just to get by.”
The choice to start a family in today’s economy is difficult enough. Finding out I would not be able to access the support that I know that I should be entitled to was crushing. This is supposed to be one of the most exciting times of my life but, instead, I am struggling just to get by. Without these benefits, my family’s quality of life is in peril. I will not be able to afford our health insurance, my car payment, or childcare once I am able to return to work.
The current system is not well-rounded enough to include all of its participants. I feel intentionally left out and, altogether, forgotten. Independent contractors, and workers like myself who do not stay with one employer for more than a few weeks or months at a time due to the nature of our industry, deserve access to paid family leave benefits, too. I encourage our state lawmakers to make necessary changes to New York’s Paid Family Leave program including removing the 26 consecutive week eligibility requirement and creating easier access to paid family leave for independent contractors.
Due to the current system, I am being forced into a position to choose between my career and starting a family. I know that I am not alone in this feeling. Though it may be too late for me to obtain New York Paid Family Leave, I do believe that, with the right momentum, we can reform the benefit so that my fellow industry workers and all contract employees will not have to feel this same hopelessness that I have.
