West End actors ready to walk out over pay

Published Wednesday 5 March 2008 at 16:40 by Lalayn Baluch

Exclusive: West End performers are willing to take industrial action if London theatre managers do not agree to a 44% minimum wage hike being demanded by Equity.

The trade union is currently pushing for the existing basic pay rate for actors working in the West End to increase from £381 per week to £550. A new second minimum wage of £650 is also being sought for performers who are required to work on Sundays.

According to Equity president Harry Landis, cast members in shows across the capital have now unanimously rejected a ‘best offer’ increase put forward by the Society of London Theatre.

Landis, who described the current minimum wage as a “joke”, explained: “Every cast member was seen. Every one of them turned it down. Every one of them said, ‘We are willing to do whatever it requires to win it, which means if we come out [of the shows], we will come out’. It was wonderful to see such solidarity among all the casts.

“When I joined this union there was no rehearsal pay. They said, ‘How are we going to pay you? There is no money coming in from the box office’. Well, they learned, and now they pay rehearsal money. Holiday pay and subsistence pay didn’t exist. We won it because Equity members paid the dues.”

However, Landis said he believed a resolution was likely as theatre managers would not risk allowing strike action to go ahead.

This point was echoed by Equity spokesperson Martin Brown, who told The Stage: “I think the fact that we have gone to casts and they have said no, SOLT is highly likely to come back and want to talk again.”

He explained that while a walkout was not imminent, as cast members had not yet threatened to strike, it was something that they had agreed to consider in order to back the campaign, and was still a possibility for the future.

Equity is to hold a meeting this Friday at St Paul’s Church in Covent Garden to discuss the situation with all West End cast members and “look to them for guidance” for the next step of the campaign.

While Brown declined to reveal further details of the current negotiations, he added: “It is possible that SOLT know of this meeting and it is possible we will have something before that meeting to tell people. But that is in the lap of the gods, I really don’t want to say Equity is expecting something from the employers.

“It is down to the employers now. They know the members are unhappy about what SOLT has described as their best offer. It is really down to them now to make a decision if they want to get back with something better.”

If the negotiations are successful, it will mark the first significant increase to the West End minimum since 2002.

The union’s previous attempts in 2005 to have it rise to £400 were abandoned after a deal could not be reached with SOLT.

Equity members last striked in 2003, when choristers refused to perform in the English National Opera’s production of The Trojans - The Capture of Troy, in protest over planned redundancies. At the time it was reported that the cancellation of a show cost the company £50,000 in box office income and thousands more in wages for front of house and production staff.

Last year, a 19-day strike by stagehands on Broadway, which saw 26 productions shut down, cost New York’s theatre scene approximately $38 million.

SOLT chief executive Richard Pulford said he would not comment on ongoing negotiations.