Tuesday 8 October 2013

working for free.

Having just had a short but inspirational chat with Alan Durrant, I felt I wanted to blog about this issue whilst it was still fresh in my mind.  Unpaid jobs within the performing arts are on a rise and I want to explore this issue and see if i can find research that supports working for free.  I have like many other performers worked on jobs for no pay,  my main reason was to gain experience and network.  But, how long can you work for free before you need money to pay your bills?  If money wasn't an issue I would perform for free every day, as it is what I have a great passion for and I would love to do it all the time.  But money is a big issue in this world, we have to have money to survive, we live in a society where money rules.  So how can we justify working for free?


I found this very interesting info graphic, made by 'Jessica Hische', which I feel is mocking the idea of working for free and thought I would share it below:

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5 comments:

  1. Unknown15 October 2013 at 05:10

    Hey Lizzie,

    Working for free is such a hard topic of conversation I feel! I personally find that a lot of my friends that I trained with are happier to work for free at the moment because we only graduated last year and so they are building up their C.V's. However people who have been in the industry for a longer time are sometimes more reluctant as they have had a taster of what it's like to have the thing you love also be the thing to pay the bills. I think that the way the industry is currently you have to be prepared to work some jobs for free, as otherwise it can be hard to gain experience. But it does seem like this is one of the few industries where is it exceptable to train for three years to then go in work with no pay! I wonder if other professions would be happy to not be paid if they love their job so much?

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    1. Unknown22 October 2013 at 12:02

      Hey hun, please take my short survey :) http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/9F7BK6T

      Delete
  2. By Jove!18 October 2013 at 01:59

    Hi Lizzie,

    I think this is an excellent topic. It is important and current. Interestingly, we have supported a project last year by Internaware you campaign against free labour. You may note it is actually illegal for an employer to employ you on a job that would otherwise be undertaken by a paid worker.

    Check out: http://www.internaware.org/

    Also, Paula led the project last year (with Media students here at MDX) so she could also help you with the issue.

    I would also think Equity would be very interested, especially if you researched into an area that would help them campaign (e.g. by surveying views or the amount of free work undertaken by dancers) and if you were to get Internaware to guide and support you, you could do a very worthwhile and perhaps even influential piece of research.

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  3. Paula Nottingham18 October 2013 at 10:28

    Yes Lizzy a very 'hot' topic they we need more practitioner research about. Hannah looked into the issues of internships last year http://hannahzapala.blogspot.co.uk. Have you looked into what the unions have said about the issue? Like equity? or have you seen https://actorsminimumwage.wordpress.com/tag/unpaid-actors/ - blog.

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    1. Unknown22 October 2013 at 12:06

      Yes Equity have been doing a huge campaign on it actually, which was one of the reasons I became so passionate about the subject.

      Delete

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