The Stage

Form reform needed

Published Monday 9 November 2009 at 16:30

It is a year since I brought to Equity’s notice that its youth membership enrolment forms were inappropriate. They are adult forms being sent to minors. The form is sent along with a ‘Being an Equity Member’ leaflet and a recruitment letter to children aged 14 and 15 years who appear in the Spotlight’s Children Directory.

The Equity youth member application form remains unchanged. It still only requests the youth member to sign and not a parent/guardian. If you read the small print, signing entitles the signatory to receive union goods, benefits and services and the right to vote. Parent/guardian signatures are not required anywhere on the form.

For an initial outlay of £60, all that the youth member receives is information on entitlements, only available to them once they become adult members. It is not made clear that the benefits and services and the right to vote are solely available to adult Equity membership. What does this payment of £60 actually entitle the youth member to? This includes a joining fee of £25 (could this be construed as an up-front fee?) in addition to an annual fee of £35.

I was informed that becoming a youth member could secure their name for them in the future, when they, in time, become adult members of the union. This was one of the very pointers put forward from Equity against possible child membership, citing that a child could be withholding a possible professional name from an adult.

I believe this to be misleading recruitment, as youth members won’t become eligible to any benefits nor any direct help from the union until they turn 16.

Equity membership is a good thing, but only by properly representing them as members of Equity. Not by misleading them.

Then I would like to see the membership extended to children of all ages.

Teri Scoble

Former Equity councillor

Email supplied