Equity targets Kenwright as ‘worst payer’

Published Wednesday 21 May 2008 at 14:45 by Alistair Smith

Equity ARC: Exclusive: Bill Kenwright has become the first employer to be singled out by Equity in its battle for better West End pay for actors, after the union’s president Harry Landis launched an astonishing attack on the producer and branded him “the worst payer in the West End”.

During his president’s address at this year’s Equity Annual Representative Conference, Landis made an outspoken bid to name and shame the producer, who is one of the most prolific and high-profile employers in London’s Theatreland, as well as chairman of Everton Football Club.

Landis said: “Now I’m not backward in mentioning names - some people don’t like to, but I’m going to. Bill Kenwright is the worst payer in the West End, paying minimum for everything. It is his representative on their [Society of London Theatre’s] negotiating team that I think is holding us up [in the negotiations for a new West End minimum].”

At the event, Landis presented Trades Union Congress general secretary Brendan Barber - reportedly a regular in the directors’ box at Everton - with a football shirt branded with “Play Fair on West End Pay”, to be presented to Kenwright.

The Equity president also reiterated his previous threat that employers could face industrial action if Equity’s demands for a new £550 minimum wage are not met.

He added: “I tell you this - if they don’t come up with a reasonable offer that is acceptable to our members in the West End, we won’t be responsible for the consequences. The blame will lie entirely with the Society of London Theatre. It will be their own fault.”

Responding to Landis’ comments, Julius Green, associate producer for Bill Kenwright Limited, told The Stage: “Harry Landis speaks from a position of complete ignorance and with a total disregard for the facts. Bill Kenwright Ltd is this country’s most prolific commercial producer of plays and musicals, and as such is one of its biggest employers of stage actors. We operate at all times within agreed union contracts, and as and when we pay union-approved minimum rates, we have a perfect right to do so.

“We also frequently pay above - often well above - minimum West End rates and for an Equity president to mislead his members by asserting otherwise on a public platform is not only blatantly slanderous, but must call into question his suitability for the job - although we appreciate that he is standing for re-election and is presumably desperate for any publicity he can get.”

Green added: “Only 10% of our West End productions actually make a profit and we are pleased to put that profit back into other ventures that might not otherwise receive a West End run, such as The Big Life, Elmina’s Kitchen and the Royal Shakespeare Company Jacobethan and Canterbury Tales seasons.

“Despite the increasing difficulty of running a self-financing producing operation in the West End, we have been pleased to support the efforts of the current SOLT/Equity negotiations to achieve a higher basic rate of pay for actors, although it has to be said that Mr Landis’ grandstanding has frequently threatened to derail these discussions, as indeed it does now.

“As I am the ‘representative’ on the SOLT negotiating team to whom Mr Landis refers, I am sorry to be able to report to his members that this sort of offensive and confrontational style is typical of their president’s approach to industrial relations. It is tragic that his own acting career now appears to be limited to cheap end of the pier stunts such as his presentation of an Everton shirt to Mr Barber.”