SAG-AFTRA dues are $206 a year plus 1.575% of professional earnings, so Equity subscription at £125 a year with a £30 joining fee is relatively cheap. What is unfair about Equity subs is that only those earning less than £21,900 pay more than 1% of professional earnings. If you want to change that, or anything else about Equity, the way to do it is to be a member, and take an active part in the union by attending your local branch meetings or even standing for election to the branch committee, or to one of the industrial or specialist committees, or to the Equity Council.
I belong to a co-operative agency, which stipulates that all its members must join Equity and must have Spotlight membership (which is a greater expense). That is the best way for the agency to get us auditions with casting directors and to get us work, which is critical to the agency as its only income is the commission members pay on their professional work.
Emmy, of course you’re entitled to your opinion. But as you can tell from the response your remarks produced, it is naive to think that actors only want to be members of Equity so that we can try to make other actors feel less professional.
You have only been paid as well as you have been by the BBC because of years of hard-won agreements that Equity has negotiated with the BBC. Without Equity, nearly all employers would expect actors (and other Equity members) to work for very low wages or for none at all, or even to pay for the privilege of the experience we gain by working for them. Equity members are all contributing to the running costs of the union that fights to get us decent pay and working conditions. You are not, although you also benefit from the pay and conditions that Equity has won, so that causes resentment. Actors who headline major films and have a public profile are earning enough money to be able to pay their share for the benefits with which Equity has provided them.
But much more importantly, the union’s strength is in solidarity. If we are unanimous, we can say to exploitative employers that unless we are treated with respect and paid adequately and given humane conditions of work (a toilet is not a dressing-room, etc.) none of us will work for them. If that happens, those employers will soon change their tune. But when you advise others that Equity is not worth paying for, you undermine that solidarity, and weaken us all. That also is liable to provoke an angry tone.
In over 40 years of professional acting, it has been my experience that no matter how nice and friendly the people in the management of the company for which you’re working seem to be, as soon as there is an accident and you get hurt, it was entirely your own fault, the company is in no way to blame and certainly won’t be paying you any compensation for pain and suffering, lost wages nor time off work. That’s when it’s helpful to be a member of a Union that will not be deterred by the tens of thousands of pounds that a court case can cost. Ten million pounds of Public Liability Insurance can also come in handy, in addition to accident and backstage insurance (which operates overseas as well as in the UK) providing support if you can’t work due to an accident.
Equity lobbies governments, employers and others on issues of arts funding, agency regulation, National Insurance status of artists, BBC licence fee, entertainment licencing, credits on television, intellectual property rights and many other subjects that affect us. The Equity Benevolent Fund makes grants to members facing financial hardship. Members get free advise on National Insurance, tax, welfare benefits and pensions. Equity’s industrial agreements produce hundreds of thousands of pounds each year in payments for use of members’ work in television, and film re-runs, sales of DVDs, videos and audio recordings. The British Equity Collecting Society distributes funds that come from collective licences negotiated by Equity along with statutory performers’ rights for private copying, rental and other uses across the European Union. It has collected and distributed more than £80million from these sources for film, television and radio performances, and I have recently had over £1,000 from BECS for a film I acted in nearly 30 years ago. That has repaid me for a lot of years of Equity subs, particularly since when I joined in 1976 there was no joining fee, and subs were £40 a year! I’m not dead yet, but Equity pays Funeral Benefit as well, and there’s an Equity pension scheme.
I don’t want to seem angry nor unfriendly to fellow actors, and I respect Emmy for expressing her opinion, but I disagree with it, and wish that all actors would join Equity, because we’re so much stronger when we all pull together, and Equity would be so much stronger if we were all members.
