State Lawmakers and the Governor Value Film Workers More Than Workers Who Care For the Disabled New Mexicans
The priorities of state legislators and the governor are very clear.
If you work in the world of movies and television, even commercials, New Mexico lawmakers and Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham will make sure you get paid well.
If you care for disabled or elderly New Mexicans, the same state budget-makers show how much they really value your work – not very much.
According to the latest contract for below the line film workers in New Mexico, employees make between $31/an hour, at the low end, to a high of almost $49/an hour – along with about $175 a day extra in health and retirement benefits.
The state’s Developmental Disabilities Supports Division (DDSD), defines the job of a direct support professional (DSP), as “a non-administrative employee or subcontractor of a direct support provider agency.
“DSPs spend the majority of their working hours providing supportive services to individuals with developmental disabilities who live and work in the community.“
A recent report from DDSD, determined wages paid to more than 60% of the direct support workers are between $12/an hour and $17/an hour.
And most of these workers are paid at the lower end of that range.
Many receive no benefits.
A large number of them are paid as sub-contractors, who are denied over-time pay at a rate of time and a half for hours worked over 40 per week.
If injured on the job, those who are working as sub-contractors are also likely uncovered for workers compensation protections.
The DDSD oversees the delivery of services to developmentally disabled New Mexicans and collaborates with its parent agency, the New Mexico Health Care Authority, in proposing the rates that ultimately provide the hourly rates of pay for the people who provide the personal care for the disabled.
Those proposed rates are presented to the legislature and governor for approval – the same legislators and governor who have propped up the film industry through incentives.
During the past six years, the governor and state legislators, have bragged about the high wages they subsidize for film workers – not to mention the millions more in lucrative development deals the state’s economic development department offers to so-called “film partners” Netflix, NBCUniversal and 828 Productions.
According to the the New Mexico Film Office, for fiscal years 2023 through 2032, the state plans on paying more than $1.5 billion, to film companies.
Productions, and the film workers salaries and benefits, are subsidized by the state at base amounts of 25% to a maximum credit amount of 40%
The lowest paid film workers are earning more than $600/a day – or about $3,000 for a five day (sixty hour week) in hourly pay and fringe benefits.
Most film workers are guaranteed a 12-hour day – so the minimum paid for eight hours at $31.53 an hour, and another four at $47.30 an hour, or essentially $441/a day for hours worked and another $175/a day in fringe benefits.
The New Mexico worker who provides human to human, necessary, and life-affirming personal care to a fellow New Mexican with disabilities, barely survives on the state authorized pay they receive – about $116/a day, many with no fringe benefits, and no workers compensation protections.