Unionism and the creative industries. THE INFORMAL MEDIA ECONOMY. Ramon Lobato and Julian Thomas

 

 

“The MEAA says makers of The Hobbit have so far refused to offer standard union contracts. Members have been advised to not accept work on the films and stars Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving support the boycott, according to the union.”

The article discusses the differences in today’s working conditions between the formal and informal marketplace for creative media workers. In the past a flexible, informal working environment was a socially desirable and highly prestigious contrast to a formal and regulated working environment. For many years highly creative professionals were able to freelance and secure highly paid creative projects for a range of clients. The advent of computers and the internet allowed them to work from their own offices or home environments and pick and choose their projects from a multitude of clients all around the world. The contraction of the labour industry, attack on labour unions and the widespread international expansion of the internet has changed these working conditions forever.

The rise in the educated middle-class in the west has created a highly competitive labour market which suits the owners of capital battling to reduce cost, and raise profits and dividends for shareholders. The sustained economic contraction caused by the financial disaster has further contacted opportunities in the labour market and created an oversupply of educated creatives desirous of the freedom and perceived highly satisfying, artistic and unconventional workplaces of the past. The notion of the creative artist toiling in a shabby garret while producing the next great novel or work of artistic genius is exposed in the article as a fiction. “Independents” now face conditions of underemployment, a lack of financial security, long hours, unpaid overtime, and self exploitation. 

Freelance writers face severe competition from international workers prepared for work long hours for what in the west may seem like a pittance. Writing articles for $65 that take a week to produce is well below a survival wage in the west, but may well be a reasonable weekly wage in underdeveloped countries.

This situation is of extreme concern for students entering a creative work environment where conditions and expectations may be drawing further apart in the future. Having worked in the construction industry for many years under “Workchoices”, I experienced the onslaught of a concerted political and economic attack on the conditions and wages of construction workers. At the time, the only answer for those forced into wage erosion by workplace contracts and the importation of low paid overseas workers and low quality materials was by concerted labour action and solidarity amongst workers. In fact labour action was outlawed at the time with fines of $10,000 for each worker for each day of strike action, and Union (Construction Forestry, Mining & Electrical Union, CFMEU) fines of $10,000 for each day a member chose to strike. The desire for job security forced workers to submit to unsafe and at times life-threatening workplace conditions.

The difficulty for creative workers is the lack of a trade union tradition in their industries. There is no political and social responsibility to protect and support fellow workers. Creatives often don’t understand the battles of the past that secured reasonable conditions and wages and avoided exploitation in their industries. The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, MEAA is the union which fights for workers conditions in Australia and students should be encouraged to join not just the creative Guilds but the union which will fight for and defend their rights in years to come. To work outside the regulations of the unions is to undermine and threaten the rights and privileges of all workers, over all industries.