The Stage

Equity relaunches bid for regional pay hike

Published Wednesday 10 February 2010 at 15:40 by Alistair Smith

Equity has revived its bid for an across the board £400 a week minimum for actors and stage managers working in theatre outside the West End.

Earlier this month, commercial and independent theatre managements agreed new pay deals for actors and stage managers, which will raise the minimum to £400 from 2011.

These agreements mean subsidised venues using Theatrical Management Association contracts are now the only mainstream sector of the industry not currently committed to raising the minimum rate of pay to £400 or above. In 2008, the West End agreed to a minimum of between £450 and £600 a week.

The Independent Theatre Council has now approved a deal to increase the current level of £375 a week to £385 from April 2010 and to £400 in April 2011, and commercial managers on TMA contracts have passed an agreement for the current level of £350 to increase to £380 in April 2010 and £400 in April 2011.

However, the minimum in the subsidised repertory sector - which includes most major regional producing venues - currently stands at £352 a week, with only £324 for stage management.

Last year, Equity was forced to settle for a 0.5% increase in pay in the sector, after its initial bid for a £400 minimum in sub-rep was rejected by the TMA.

However, it has now resubmitted its claim and insisted it will push hard for the 13.7% increase - a bid which is likely to prove difficult to achieve in the current economic climate.

Equity assistant general secretary for live performance Stephen Spence told The Stage: “What we got overwhelmingly from our membership was that the claim was just, the claim was fair and they wanted us to proceed with the claim, to go back to it. The employers were saying to us we were a bit out of step with reality, but our members have said that, whatever the employer reality, their reality was that the claim was justified and we should go after it.”

Spence added that “in many ways, they [subsidised theatres] have never had it so good”, with increasing subsidy from Arts Council England over the last decade.

“If there is not an ability at this time to address the question of low pay, when will there be?” he said. “It begs the question, where has the money gone? Because in our view it has not gone, significantly, to actors and stage managers. And we are not well pleased with that.

“The commercial theatre employers came to a deal with us, the independent employers - who had raised very similar concerns [as the sub-rep sector] with us last time round - have gone that extra mile, taken our concern about low wages very, very seriously. They have come with us on the journey of eliminating low wages. I don’t suppose for an instant that doesn’t put some kind of pressure on them. Small-scale companies will have had to have thought very hard about this and I think it’s a credit to them they have. But subsidised repertory has so far been unable or unwilling to go down that path.”

Equity submitted its revised claim to the TMA last week and has yet to receive a response. TMA chief executive Richard Pulford said he did not comment on ongoing negotiations.