Hypocrisy
It’s Monday, and my shift on Wednesday is cancelled. This isn’t unusual. A large cultural venue in London relies on ‘casual’ workers like me. We supervise the artwork, check the tickets, sell the unflinchingly expensive ice-cream in the theatre. In my case, it’s cramming drinks orders into an impossibly short twenty-minute interval.
My bar doesn’t guarantee any work. Holiday pay is added to the hourly wage. We do get statutory sick pay – it’s just so low we could never afford to claim it.
I approached my employer about this. I wanted to highlight the unfairness I felt working for an organisation that claims to be bold, radical, and inclusive, but does nothing to tackle the in-work poverty experienced by its staff. My boss told me salaries were once offered. But to attract temporary workers when busy, the hourly wage had to be high. Actors and students piled in, eager for a job they could drop with minimal notice. Other staff opted for better upfront pay over a modest salary with a meagre pension. Casual contracts became the standard across the venue.
By allowing this, my employer shirked any responsibility it has to offer sustainable employment to its staff. Being trapped in a cycle of low pay is painted as beneficial. This has become acceptable, particularly in hospitality, a sector often viewed as transitional, rather than a ‘real’ job. This is irrelevant – and ignorant. This logic is used to strip security from other work deemed ‘low-skilled’. It ignores the creativity, commitment, and graft these jobs involve. Worse, it paints security as a luxury. Stability from work should have little to do with what the work is. Taxi drivers and food couriers taught us this in their David-and-Goliath fight against gig economy giants, Amazon, Uber, and Deliveroo. Workers’ rights are not a choice, they are an essential part of being employed. They are dignity.
ACAS – employment dispute experts – offer some guidance. They suggest zero-hour models should be avoided if a worker is needed regularly, ‘over a continuous period’ – and never to run ‘the core business, rather than to manage peaks in demand.’
My venue's “core business” might not be pulling pints or checking bags. Yet 1.5 million visitors need to walk through the doors each year to keep it afloat. It is not just thoughtful art making this possible. It is the refreshments, the ushering, the directions. Almost all the workers who do these things are on zero-hour contracts. They are administered by a handful of managers on comfortable salaries. These managers divide the work into ‘departments’ – bars, box office, galleries – as though these don’t interact to contribute collectively to the success of the wider business.
My venue has an event calendar. It could plan for high and low demand. It could create a front of house with different shifts, rather than creating absurd departments. It could work harder to offer regular employment alongside a student or casual offer. It could ask that employees take properly paid holiday when it’s closed, or quiet. In short, it could do better.
Sadly, there is little interest in this. For the third year running, my employer has rolled out a £1000 cost-of-living top to salaried staff. No help was offered to those on zero-hour contracts. A support payment, calculated against hours worked, could surely have been considered. Management asks all staff to adopt a ‘one team’ mentality. Except they seem to forget that being part of a family works both ways - not only when it suits you.
This is especially true when your ‘family’ is spending millions on redesigning its home. This hopes to transform not only the building, but the culture inside. A new CEO is working hard to redress a historical reputation for inequality and institutional racism that darkens the venue's past. She assures us this is more than new branding and diversity policies. To make this a reality, the creative leaders of this iconic cultural landmark need to decide. Is it worth enfolding all its workers, whatever their role, into its vision for a truly sustainable future?
I was sad to have to leave my job of two years to find more secure work. I did so before my view of a place I love – and big arts venues in general – was damaged beyond repair. For me, they remain places of great joy and lasting purpose. Whether they can become that for everyone remains to be seen.
Words by Douglas Nelson
Art by Helen Anne Smith