Beryl My knee-jerk is to take them down.

Roland I suppose from a legal action point, they do take people to court a lot – over missed contracts, misconduct, injury. If we say Equity doesn’t take legal action, or if there has to be a vote on every legal action, would that change things? 

Peter Equity is taking legal action on behalf of members all the time. 

Beryl Nothing changes if there’s no challenge, I guess.

Seamus I would have preferred spending money on defending a case against the complaints of, for instance, former actors turned right-wing commentators, instead of throwing its members under the bus. 

Jon I’d hope lessons have been learned from that particular case. 

Seamus Equity does absolutely brilliant work and is always stepping up for its members, but sometimes, on much-publicised cases, they can drop the ball. 

Roland I really wish there was a more open discussion with them and their members. It does feel like a closed shop sometimes.

Dicky I usually act as an Equity deputy on my jobs, but every company [with whom I’m working] has a member who will come up and say: “Equity didn’t support me in this.” And then they will admit that they stopped paying their subs 10 years ago. 

Roland So many complaints, and then they say: “I haven’t been a member ever.”

John I must admit, since the new head came on board, I’ve found it challenging to keep my support for Equity unwavering. 

Jon He can be a polarising figure all right, John, but I can’t get past how much actual pay has been improving.

Peter Under the current general secretary, we’ve made a lot of industrial advances. Take West End pay. 

Seamus Yes, the collective agreements in the West End were a huge win, but those wins need to be taken to the regions and Off-West End. 

Roland I think the improvement is London-centric. 

‘Equity is always stepping up, but sometimes, on much-publicised cases, they can drop the ball’

John Feels like that, Roland.

Peter Campaigns on Oldham Coliseum and Welsh National Opera weren’t London-centric. Both campaigns were essentially about jobs – especially Welsh National Opera. 

Dicky I’m mainly talking about pay in the regions, Peter.

Jon The London-centric feel could also just be because the West End managers caved a lot easier than the sub-repertory theatres did. 

John I find it mental that almost every Equity meeting I’ve been to, one of the main points that is brought up is digs. At the most recent meeting, the Equity representative basically shrugged her shoulders.

Roland Pay across the board is bad – TV and theatre. And digs, lordy! 

Beryl The last Equity rep who came to talk to us said: “We haven’t solved the digs thing.” I don’t know that they can.

Jon Not to be all Inside Baseball, but I’ve heard that digs are the single biggest conversation in every negotiation. Theatres just will not budge on removing the gap between subsistence and touring allowance.

Peter Equity is certainly campaigning on digs. The reality is that we have more industrial muscle in the West End than 
the regions.

John My point is: the money spent on the case against Spotlight could have been put into something more worthwhile. 

Seamus We can talk for days about the pros and cons of our union, but in terms of this question, I think that, in theory, legal action could and should be taken by Equity, but it should have the support of a certain percentage of its membership. 

Jon It’s a valid point. Although the counter-argument is that if we’d won, it would have had a huge, immediate effect on the finances of every member – far more than subs. 

Beryl That’s it, Jon. I also think that it’s important to fight the monopoly. I totally hear the hubris point, but if a union can change something like that, it would possibly boost numbers, membership and support.

Dicky The worry is that now Spotlight has won, does it give them leverage to increase their fees every year?

Jon They’re now owned by a venture capital firm, Dicky, so I think that will happen anyway. 

Peter There’s also confusion here about ‘legal action’. The union is taking legal action for members in small claims courts all the time. You couldn’t take a vote every time.

John My baseline feeling is that [when it comes to the Spotlight case] it was far too big a risk for far too much money. 

Beryl Equity may still succeed – the case is ongoing. If it doesn’t work on appeal, it’s up to us and everyone in our industry to boycott.

Jon Anecdote is still the single best way to persuade people of the value of the union, in my experience. And this would have been a very useful one.

Meet our panellists

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We have given our panellists pen names and used stock images, but their biographies reflect their real career details. If you work in theatre and would like to join in the conversation, email greenroom@thestage.co.uk