Summer is itching to welcome us back into the world outside. I am more than ready to devour a pint by the canal. The Viaduct dancefloor is gagging for my moves and, I say so myself without asking permission, ridiculously brilliant summer wardrobe to return. I’m also aching to get back to work, making theatre, delivering arts projects, engaging in face to face conversation with my students, and shouting about brilliant shows. I’m in a lucky position, I’m good for money - I’m good for work. I have a fairly long term part time contract with a large arts institution, so I am furloughed from there at the moment and in receipt of the bulk of my income. I work freelance for a number of organisations who are all honouring their contracts with me, and I currently work with the MA Applied Theatre and Intervention students at the University of Leeds. It’s good in this house.
Lots of people in our sector are not good for money, nor are they good for work. The vast bulk of our sector has been shut down by the rapid spread of COVID-19. There is no doubt that this action will save lives, and that has to be the priority. Our work is about bringing people together, which is a very bad thing at the moment. As a result, thousands of people who work in our sector on a freelance or self-employed basis have found themselves very suddenly without income. This crisis is biting hard, and whilst the government’s support is useful, it does nothing for those who became self-employed in the previous year, those who earn even marginally more money from a PAYE job alongside their freelance work, and there will likely be no payments to anyone self-employed until June.
This crisis is not new. Anyone can become disabled at any time. Anyone can develop severe mental health problems are any time. Anyone can go to bed in a healthy financial situation and wake up in trouble. Anyone can find they are unable to work, at any time. What we’re seeing now is that this has happened to a huge amount of people all at the same time, and it has illuminated the fundamental problem with how we organise labour within the sector. We often like to position ourselves and our work as progressive, liberal, about communities and those on the margins. Lots of us in the arts are left leaning, and our politics finds life in our work. This crisis is showing that we have a lot of work to do for those politics and ethics to find life in the way we organise how we work.
The use of zero hours contracts, casualised labour, low pay, and short term contracts (often for work that is repeated and could be contracted on a longer term basis) are the reason that people now find themselves in crisis, and they are common place across the country and sector. I find myself in a lucky position as the government are supporting those of us on PAYE contracts. ACE has been ace in asking the organisations they regularly fund to honour freelance contracts. If you are not on PAYE, or not working for an NPO, you rely on the good will of the organisations you work for. We also often work in collaborations as people who are freelance, or take work without even a contract. The precarity of the sector is not new, but now it has impacted so many people in one go and has shown us how dangerous it can be.
In recent economic down turns we’ve seen the state look to protect the way the economy functions. This doesn’t protect jobs, or income, or people, but the fundamentals of how our neoliberal economy is organised. This includes things like shrinking the percentage of the public sector in terms of GDP, prioritising the financial sector as the cornerstone of the economy, and lowering taxes and removing financial ‘red tape’. When this inevitably happens, we need to resist it. When the summer rolls around, and I’m getting bevved by the canal before making an idiot of myself in the Viaduct, we cannot go back to business as usual. We need to ask difficult questions about how we organise our own part of the economy. It’s not an easy thing; you can’t offer a permanent and full time contract to someone doing audience development for a show that runs for two weeks. There’s an element of utopic thinking that is required, the sort that leads people to call for universal income in other settings. I hate to say that it’s a conversation, but it is. So please can we have it?
In the meantime, if you have any cash to spare, please do consider giving to the Leeds Coronavirus Impact Fundraiser for self-employed and freelance people in our sector. We’re raising 10 X £200 hardship funds for people who need them. If not, please think about sharing it, which always helps!
Stay safe, stay well, and let’s overthrow capitalism (or have a go anyway).
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