Why unionize designers and cultural
workers? So i'm Margherita, I'm a member
and organizer in UVW's branch
Designers and Cultural Workers and I
work as a graphic designer and as a lecturer. 
I'm Francisca, I'm also a graphic
designer and I'm also a member and organiser in DCW.
I'm Anna, I'm also a member and
organiser and I work as a freelance
textile designer and front of house staff
in an independent cinema. Culture work is
work  - we are here presenting the
designers and cultural workers branch of
the United Voices of the World - we will
go through how the branch was formed and why, making a case for campaigning
towards better pay and work conditions
in creative and cultural fields, by
unionising designers and cultural
workers. We want to show how art workers
can change, can make change through
collective organising and working in
solidarity with other workers across
different sectors to address inequality
and exploitation. So Designers and
Cultural Workers started off the back of
a couple of years of different activists
and collectives feeding into a wider
conversation about workplace organising
in the cultural sector. A particular
catalyst were events held by a
self-organised design education
collective that I'm also part of called 'Evening Class' who ran events for anti-
university festival in 2016 2017 and
2018, focusing around design education,
design work and eventually design
unionizing. We set up a graphic design
workers inquiry as a research group
within Evening Class as a response to
the problems we observed of widespread
overwork and the culture of unhealthy
working practices within the graphic
design industry, as well as other
creative industries in the UK, such as
architecture, fashion and so on. So at
these events we explored the history of
the original Artists Union which took
many years to set up, and also at other
histories of workplace organising
affiliated with our sector, such as
printers and typesetters, all of which
the union slowly became subsumed within
larger trade unions such as Unite, as the
political landscape of the UK and UK
trade unionism has changed and the role
of the designer has changed over the
years. So this is some of the in some of
the images from the original Artists
Union organising and we decided not to
set up our own union from scratch
considering that we don't have any legal
experience, political clout or the
financial ability to do so, so we decided
that setting up a specialist branch of
an existing union seemed a much more
manageable prospect -  also joining a union that consists of a huge variety of
workers, we felt stops the tendency of
employment within the arts being
continually conceptualized as a
privilege -  so a kind of luxury that's
divorced entirely from labour. We think
that a broad intersectional definition
of cultural work is needed in order to
undo this exploitative logic and
galvanize solidarity between all
workers, and institutions must be forced
to have this same recognition and accept
that all workers in the arts deserve
protections and advocacy. So we started
by evaluating existing data that has
been collected specifically about the
graphic design industry of which there
is not much. So one in four creative
workers in the UK are freelance and many
creative businesses are small and
employe fewer than five people. So this
example is from graphic designers
surveyed which suggests that only 44
percent are just getting by. Unfair wages
proliferate, over work-related stress and
burnout have become chronic within the
sector and bad practices in employment
often go unchallenged and even celebrated
for too long. For example many jobs in
art and design don't pay sick or holiday
pay let alone overtime. 90% of
internships are still offered unpaid.
Fee payments are routinely late and
there is often no pension or no
security. Our goal is to tackle the
individualisation of work-related issues
whether they're experienced in the
workplace or on your own as a freelancer.
So this has become the kind of -  this
situation has become the new normal
within the cultural sector and the
current crisis is only highlighted how
flawed our current system
is, how casualized creative work can be, 
and how much it needs to be re-theorised
and rethought. So this is a quote by Hito
Steyerl. So a few things about the creative
industries as they're sometimes termed - 
it's a young industry -  this is the tweet
by Erica Hall that kind of suggests that
 the modern field of
design doesn't exist yet -  it's taught
like a trade without labour protections.
It carries ethical responsibilities of a
profession but it's sometimes practiced
without qualification. Our workforce is
atomised, so workers will work in
different locations and for different
employers -  often if you're working
freelance this might mean having
temporary gig work and periods out of
work. Our workplace is unequal, so one of
the few comprehensive surveys that has
been undertaken about the arts field
shows a huge level of inequality and
inaccessibility for
those from working-class backgrounds or
from minority ethnic groups. For example
art work, design work and cultural work is widely misunderstood and undervalued.
Considering that the creative industries
contributes over a hundred billion to
the UK GDP and employ over two million
people,  is frustrating to see that wages
remain very low in comparison to other
areas of the economy, and illegal unpaid
internships still proliferate. Our
employment is unstable so often creative
work is precarious work. Your employers
might not have an understanding of your
rights at work and you will not have
learned this during your
qualification, if you have one. There is a
culture of competition that invites
young graduates to work for free, to stay
late, to work in the evenings, and on
weekends to be able to earn a more
regular wage or more work. So these are
images from our first meetings in
October 2019 and the second one in
November -  at the moment we have over a
hundred members and we are continuing to
build our strength and membership as a
campaigning branch. This DCW's membership
represents a cross-section of creative
industries open to anyone
identifying as a designer and all
cultural workers. We recognize people
often work multiple jobs, we have members who work in theatre and performance
fashion, publishing, graphic design,
artists, curators, people working in art
schools and art admin etc. We were
inspired by the work UVW was already
undertaking to fight modern forms of
exploitative work - we came together
around this form of activism because we
see the overlap with fellow precarious
outsourced and gig economy workers, and
therefore have more to learn and gain
from this new union movement. Many
employers in art, design, fashion, museums
and theatres do not pay sick or holiday
pay or pay overtime for example. Some of
the first UVW workers UVW represented
were cleaners at the Barbican, and our
branch recognizes that all forms
of cultural production equal cultural
workers. Galleries and museums don't
function without cleaners, porters and
security staff. They facilitate cultural production but
are more often not afforded even basic
rights due to outsourcing and casualized
practices. Organising our branch with the
UVW offered the framework to both
acknowledge and make visible the
realities of being an art worker.
UVW branches are organised with the
intention to extend UVW's reach to other
sectors of precarious work, with
workers in those fields autonomously
leading and informing but also, and when
needed, taking inspiration solidarity
experienced counsel and support from the
main UVW. In the current situation with
the art world cancelled and a design
industry completely slowed down, the
income many relied on was stopped. We
know of many cases both within our Union
and outside where people's jobs were
cancelled overnight. Many cultural
workers will have fallen through the net
of government income support. Obviously
huge numbers of cultural workers won't
be properly contracted or will be
contracted both on a temporary basis - 
making the furlough scheme inaccessible.
From theatre or and performance workers
whose shows have been cancelled and
contracts not honoured,
zero-hour contracts, temp staff at art
fairs and outsourced cleaners at
galleries -  we are all falling through the
net. The cultural sector has committed to
prevailing a logic of
individualisation and competitiveness in
determent of its workforce. The status
of creative work is increasingly
casualised in the interests of
distributing profits and evenly to those
at a top. We need a cultural shift and
collaboration, and a cross sector approach is at its core. A moment of disruption as
the one we are living at a moment
creates a chance for our industry to be
reassembled in the interests of its
workers with solidarity, community
equality at the centre of culture.
DCW tries to keep the boundary between
member and organisers as porous as
possible -  any member can be an organiser - we have roles that are often shared and
rotate and are shaped in an ad hoc way
to respond to concerns or
emerging issues. We use this chart to
organise with different channels created
for working groups or roles so members
and organisers can see how things are
developing, in real time. We
use sociocracy as a way to facilitate
meetings and output - we aim for consent
rather than consensus and we try to have
as many voices and faces as possible
representing. We have supported the
recent UCU strikes and in response to the current crisis we
have been trying to map
the experiences of our members and most
notably studio spaces, as we felt in this
area a lot of organisers might not be
focused on.
In turn we have also been supported by our legal sector sister branch who helped to
co-host a member support session,
answering questions regarding benefits
and income support schemes. So with the
outbreak of the corona virus crisis we
focused a lot of our organising around a
member led rent freeze campaign for
studio spaces -  this became a crucial
point for us when the first package was
announced by the government and missed the self-employed workers this caused great
worry as our rent was due while all our
projects were being cancelled one by one -
with no alternative means of support. It
was rectified a week later with the
announcement of the self-employment
Income Support Scheme - but the ground
does not go far enough. Many fall between
the cracks, like workers who are both
employed and self-employed and money
won't be available until June. Those of
us able to claim the grant, will be
receiving 80 percent of their taxable
income. This will not cover our usual
expenses as
taxable income is what's left once we've
deducted our studio rent fees. It's
important to recognise that the loss of
income will last, which is why we believe
a rent freeze is necessary in the face
of months' worth of affected earnings and
wages. We anticipate very
difficult times to come. Work isn't going
to pick up overnight - cultural
institutions will be closed for a long
time and the intense usual periods of
work when the self-employed might
generate a lot of their yearly income,
like summer gigs, fairs, fashion weeks -  are
cancelled. Another thing we realised and
made us want to address the studio issue,
is the government guidelines around work
from home were too vague. Government was
sending confusing messages on staying at
home to save lives but also keep the
economy going. The government states
anyone who cannot work from home can
still go to work - this ambiguous advice
is difficult to interpret for artists of
employed designers who often can't work
from home. There's a particular speech
being used around studio access for
artists to need to continue accessing
their studio for the sake of their
mental health. But really, is it just as
studio providers that one is sure to be
given more reasons to counsel friends.
So, we created a survey in the beginning of
March - it was vital for us to understand
how organisations have responded and
gather our members' stories. Vague
government guidelines did lead to very
inconsistent practices and gave perhaps
more room for abuse. This led to the
creation of a public database listing
all different practices from studio
providers. We found out that many
providers have announced rent holidays
and emergency funds. This is not enough
for tenants who are calling for further
support. Emergency funds are often very
small and only if you are encouraged to
apply.
When holidays only increase the anxiety
of a growing debt -
and we found out also that other
providers are going ahead with rent
increases, threatening tenants with fees
for not paying some bills, charging high
interest rates for late payments with
absolutely no warning, and a general bad
or minimal communication. So we put
together a best practice guideline for
studio providers which was sent out to
many across the UK. We believe that
measures taken by studio providers do
not go far enough -  so our key demands are
the closure of all studio spaces to all but essential work. This closure is
urgent for crowded studios, shared spaces,
where you pass through many communal
areas to access your own. For the studios
remaining open for essential work,
frequent cleaning must be done and
sufficient hygiene products must remain
available. We are stressing the need for
rent suspension and not a holiday.
No rent increases or evictions, increased
transparency in the communication
between providers and studio holders. We
are also currently trying to gather an
overview of the legal landscape with studio
tenancies, to work out whether providers
are breaking their contracts with us - 
when they're asking to keep paying while
access to studios isn't allowed. The
corona virus pandemic has exacerbated
precarity and inequality in the creative
industries, exposing unsustainable
practices that have been strategically
ignored by employers for too long.
Our best practice letter was signed by
Rent Strike, the Art Workers Forum and
other UVW branches, the legal sector
workers, and the section of architectural
workers. We continue to seek to build
bridges with other tenant groups, trade
unions and activists and mutual aid
groups, putting pressure on the UK
government and opposition, as it becomes
clearer and clearer how badly they have
mismanaged their response to the corona
virus pandemic, in comparison to other
countries -  and how many lives and
livelihoods will be lost as a result.
To find out more about joining DCW please
find us on twitter and instagram at
UVW_ DCW. To read more about UVW's coronavirus demands and resources
please visit www.UVWunion.org.uk
at the moment we are based in London
only, but do get in touch with us via
email at DCW@UVW Union.org.uk if you
would like to start a local branch where you
are.
 
