Equity general secretary Paul W Fleming told Left Foot Forward the Labour Party has to change course
Equity’s general secretary Paul W Fleming has branded the Labour government ‘deeply unpopular’, ‘broadly incompetent’ and claims ‘nobody likes them’. He made the comments in an interview with Left Foot Forward at this year’s TUC Congress in Brighton this week.
At the start of the interview, Fleming discussed what he previously told Left Foot Forward were the priorities he wanted to see the Labour government addressing for his members in the creative arts sector – namely restoring arts funding and developing an ‘industrial strategy for the creative industries’.
On arts funding, Fleming told Left Foot Forward that they’d seen “sod all” from the government, going on to add: “We’re in no better position, if anything we’re in a worse position than we were with the Tories in terms of restoration of public subsidy and a proper approach to government intervention in the arts and entertainment.” He then said they’d heard a “lot of warm words about leveraging private capital”, arguing “the only advantages it brings are about buildings and bosses and not about the workforce, and we do have a crisis in the industry at the moment – we’ve seen a 25% loss in jobs in theatre since 2017, a 40% loss in jobs for our members in the smallest theatres which are more likely to employ black artists, women artists and so on.”
On the question of the industrial strategy for the creative sector, Fleming was marginally more optimistic, telling Left Foot Forward “there is movement and there is a strategy”. However, he went on to say: “I’ve got a lot of criticisms of the strategy, but credit where it’s due it is positive that it’s being delivered. What I think the real weakness of the strategy is is it’s for the entire creative industries which of course includes advertising, fashion, some publishing, video games, as well as film [and] theatre, and so it’s all things to all people.”
Fleming added: “The proof of how good it is will be: does the industrial strategy affect decisions made about the BBC Charter renewal, does it affect the Arts Council England review that’s happening – which is a very positive thing to happen – and does the government take the growth mission as the primary driver of decisions in our sector? And at the minute I think it’s fair to say we still think we’re an afterthought. But the industrial strategy if treated well is a positive start to making sure that we’re at the heart of a growth plan and a growth plan that’s very quick, very equitable and very cost-efficient.”
Fleming’s criticisms of Labour in government didn’t stop at these issues that directly affect Equity members though. Equity is not affiliated to the Labour Party and as such will not have a role in nominating the next deputy leader. However, given the significance of the role and the implications it could have for the future direction of the government, Left Foot Forward asked Fleming what he makes of the election.
Fleming said: “it’s very hard to get excited about it”, going on to add “I think there’s a great risk with it that we end up talking about the personalities who should be in particular jobs and attempting to resolve the course of the Labour government through the election of one individual – whether that be to solidify or change the course.”
He went on to add: “The party has to change, the policy programme of the government has to change, their general political direction has to change, not small numbers of personnel.” Fleming continued by saying: “changing the deputy leader is not going to change” the course of the government, adding the election could be a “platform for that discussion” about the future course of the government. But he then said that “there shouldn’t be a fucking discussion – they’re deeply unpopular, they’re broadly incompetent and nobody likes them. This is a massive, massive problem”, before calling for the government to do more to tackle the cost of living crisis and to bring public services into public ownership.
Outside of the national direction of government policy, Fleming spoke to Left Foot Forward about one of Equity’s significant campaigns. Equity has been campaigning to end casting directories charging artists a fee for inclusion, arguing that this is a carve-out from regulations governing employment agencies which prohibits charging work seekers a fee whether they find work or not.
Equity recently lost a court case against casting directory Spotlight, in which the judge ruled that Spotlight “does not provide services for the purposes of finding persons employment with employers, or of supplying employers with persons for employment by them.”
Speaking to Left Foot Forward about the ruling, Fleming called it an “extraordinary judgement”, adding “it not only means our members are more at risk than they were before, but actually every worker in the economy is because the judgement has opened up an ability for you to compile a directory of workers, charge them an upfront fee no matter what area of the economy they work in and say this is not an employment service. So it’s an outrageous judgement. She compares an employment directory to a dating website in her judgement – it’s quite bizarre.”
Fleming said that Equity will be discussing whether to apply to appeal the judgement, but irrespective of that, his union will be looking at how to “build a coalition across the movement and across politics to say all workers as a result of this judgement, particularly in the growing gig economy are now at risk of a really obvious problem.” He added: “We believe the legislation’s strong enough to protect workers on that front at the minute, but this has come as a bit of a judgement. And I think it says a lot that Justin Madders, who obviously was employment minister at the time, phoned us the evening about that judgement to say if this stands, the government’s going to have to look at legislation to resolve it. So it is a very very very big issue suddenly for all workers and it’s something that the whole movement and indeed any progressive politician has got to get behind because it’s blown a hole in an area of agency regulation that we didn’t think existed.”
Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward
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