Pirouette

Yes, Direction_of_your_dreams said in their post above that students used to get paid when performing for the RB up until around 2015/16. I don't know about the other companies.

It is correct that students on work experience or placements of less than one year are not automatically entitled to the minimum wage. I trust that the period for which students are engaged with the company does not exceed that length of time. However, I disagree that already highly skilled ballet students should be deprived of a wage that they would have received in the past just because students of other subjects don't always receive one. The dance world can do better than engaging in a race to the bottom which encourages exploitation. We should be levelling up, not levelling down. The main point here, though, isn't that the students are unpaid, it's that in the scenario described above (if it is indeed the case) a service is being provided and paid for , but yet the people performing the service are apparently not receiving the money owed to them as it is being directed elsewhere. This is not the same situation as if the work was unpaid and no money changed hands. This is the point that I believe the posters above were making.

Yes, the money did go to some students (if this is indeed what happened), but not to the students who had earned it. I'm sure that none of us would be too impressed if our wages were deducted in their entirety at source and redistributed elsewhere? Dancers - students or otherwise - have as much right to receive the wages they have earned as anyone else. I think that an audition fund is a wonderful idea that other schools should adopt, and the RBS should be applauded for that. But they could surely source the funds for this elsewhere? The school appears to benefit from a significant amount of philanthropy, as evidenced by the long list of sponsors on their website - far more than any of the other main vocational schools. The wages earned by students are likely to be a drop in the ocean in comparison, and whilst the figures cited above may not sound like a lot of money in the bigger picture, they will mean a lot to the students who earned them.

Agree, Peanut68. An audition fund sounds like a wonderful idea that other schools could learn from, but..... surely not financed with other students' earnings?? Personally, I don't agree with the 'good enough' idea either. If they are performing corps de ballet roles in a professional production they should be paid, and if they weren't good enough they wouldn't be allowed on in the first place. After all, supernumeraries get paid and some of those filling in for corps roles will doing far more technical dancing than that.

If it was all about the best deal for the employer, then I'm sure that all occupations would be on the list as no employer would want to lose out. As I said further up-thread, the NHS operates on a vast scale and has many vacancies it desperately needs to fill. I suspect that any sufficiently qualified and suitable UK applicant who wanted a full time, year round contract in the NHS would be able to get one somewhere in the UK. As has been pointed out several times on this thread, there are not hundreds of positions for dancers with tens of applicants per post, there are around ten full company contract positions with hundreds of applicants for each post. The situation just isn't comparable. I expect that those NHS positions will be removed from the Shortage Occupation List when the number of applicants increases to no longer necessitate their inclusion. For the reasons explained above, I just don't have the same faith that this will happen for the young, vulnerable dancers that we are talking about here. I challenge the government to listen to their plight and prove me wrong by taking action.

The protections I am referring to are the right for UK nationals (and others who already possess the right to work in the UK) to be prioritised for job vacancies and to see those vacancies publicly advertised for 28 days in two places suitable for the job and industry in question. Workers in all occupations benefit from this as standard, not just those considered professions in the narrower sense of the word. Employers can only hire an applicant on a Tier 2 visa once they can prove that these requirements have been met, thus the onus of proof falls firmly upon the employer. The data you ask for is not in the public domain, and may not even exist for those companies who do not advertise auditions. In the latter case, any data provided is unlikely to reflect the true picture, as, of course, fewer dancers will apply for vacancies if they don't know they exist in the first place! This puts dancers in an impossible position - a catch 22. They are at a disadvantage when being considered, and at a disadvantage when proving that they are at a disadvantage when being considered. As I said above, in other UK occupations meeting the Tier 2 visa requirements is the default requirement and the burden of proving that lies with the employer, not the pool of candidates.

If you are correct and dancers joining those companies would be eligible without the scheme then there would be no problem removing dancers from the list. It is often presented as if inclusion on the Shortage Occupation List is the only way that dancers can be hired from abroad - this is incorrect. They can still be hired with a Tier 2 visa if the company is offering at least the minimum salary and has advertised the position to the resident labour market for the requisite amount of time. There will be a little more red tape, but only the same as every other company hiring overseas workers in the UK has to deal with. The majority of UK dancers who only possess UK nationality will find it very difficult to work in Europe or elsewhere post-brexit, as the Occupation Shortage List arrangement is not reciprocal. Local workers in those countries will have protections similar to those afforded to those seeking jobs in almost every other profession in the UK. 'More skilled and suitable' isn't the criteria. The criteria for inclusion on the list is that the occupation must be 'in ‘shortage’, in that the demand for labour is higher than the supply.' It isn't, as demonstrated by the number of UK candidates that turned up to the recent ENB auditions, as cited by GoldenLily17 above, and the much smaller number of full contracts that the companies have to fill each year. The Shortage Occupation List circumvents the need to prove that the overseas candidate the employer wishes to hire is 'more skilled and suitable'. They just need to be good enough, as after all, employers recruiting for occupations on the list must be desperate and struggling to find applicants! Clearly there are sufficient applicants who are good enough and already possess the right to work in the UK as the companies are happy to have those dancers perform in their corps de ballet as students and on short term contracts. They would not put them onstage if they weren't. It seems unfair to place the burden of proof on UK dancers, when for most other workers in the UK the opposite is the case. We are only asking for the same treatment and consideration that is given to every other profession in the UK as standard.

I'm not sure that this is true. The Shortage Occupation List does permit companies to offer a lower wage than the £25,600 minimum income requirement for a tier 2 visa (after all the years of training dancers have put in to get to this standard, this is not a good thing!) I believe most starting salaries for corps dancers in the major companies are lower than this. Inclusion on the shortage list lowers the minimum salary requirement to just £20,480. Most of the smaller companies pay wages lower than this, which leaves many dancers struggling to afford the cost of living without continued parental assistance. Surely it is not ethical to leave UK dancers in a position where these are the only options open to them where they receive the same consideration that all other UK citizens can expect as standard? In many cases this would require additional finances or parental support - wages are low. Many dancers simply aren't that fortunate. Around ten for male dancers and ten for female dancers, depending on the year. Often there are fewer than that. There are more than enough British dancers to fill those vacancies, alongside others who may have the right to work in the UK through Irish or dual nationality, Settled Status or Indefinite Leave to Remain. In addition to graduate dancers there will be experienced dancers changing companies after long or short term contracts with major ballet companies in Europe or elsewhere - many of which are just as good as our major companies. As well as allowing companies to offer a reduced wage, inclusion on the Shortage Occupation List also absolves employers of the requirement to advertise the position to the resident labour market for 28 days. Several of the major companies don't advertise for full contract positions, either for entry level corps positions or the higher ranks. The Paris Opera Ballet is often accused of being a 'closed shop' - but to their credit - at least they hold an advertised audition every year. Don't British dancers also deserve to see positions advertised so they can have a fair shot at them at least?

Agree with all of that. Just wanted to add that for women, the pointe shoe allowance can vary wildly, even on Equity contracts, let alone elsewhere. If the allowance of shoes provided isn't sufficient for your needs, that can also eat into a dancer's income. I have also heard of contracts being offered pre-covid for far less than £350 per week in some smaller companies. Shocking, really. Dancers have to eat!

You can join as a student or as a graduate member for two years, after which I believe you move automatically into full membership (please correct me if I'm wrong, this may have changed). This used to be from an accredited school (which covered most of the main ones) but the joining criteria look more generous now. You can read them here: https://www.equity.org.uk/about/how-to-join/ All the major UK ballet companies, New Adventures, West End, the major Opera companies, and most other large productions tend to use Equity contracts. This is not the case in the smaller companies though - I think Ballet Cymru may be a notable positive exception here. There are other companies that historically paid a wage which didn't add up the national minimum wage when divided by the number of hours worked, let alone the Equity minimum wage! Unsure whether this is still the case. Broadway workers ran a successful campaign earlier this year to make it compulsory to include pay details for job adverts in certain major publications. If only this could happen for dancers too! Often dancers travel miles to attend auditions that they would never have bothered with had they been aware of the pay. It would certainly expose the truth of the situation and then something might be done about it. I still think that the current biggest problem lies with the second company/apprentice situation though. This is a relatively new phenomenon... Which brings me back to the original point - we need to write to MPs for fair access to jobs so that it doesn't proliferate further.

Yes, a union focused on the specific needs of dancers would be ideal.

I understand where both NJH and GoldenLily17 are coming from. There certainly aren't enough ballet dancers in Equity, that's for sure. I have done contracts where it transpired that only one or two out of a dozen or more dancers were members when the rep turned up to the meeting. I think this situation is due to a combination of despondency, a (somewhat justified) fear of rocking the boat, and the fact that - up until brexit - many UK dancers have spent the majority of their working lives abroad. They may not feel that an occasional UK contract justifies the subs, after all, most dancers are not particularly well paid. I also think that the fairly high turnover due to the short career span makes dancers more vulnerable, as there will be fewer older and more experienced performers around to speak up about conditions or when something isn't right. This is in contrast to say, opera singers or musicians, who can carry on working until retirement age, and who - with the benefit of all that extra experience - are much more difficult to take advantage of. I think that might play a part in why their unions are stronger and more effective. My personal experience is that Equity weren't very effective in negotiating pay disputes, which perhaps deters dancers from joining, but, as you say, how can they be effective if nobody joins? I'd urge all dancers, professionals and students to join Equity and make your voices heard.

This is great, and covers many of the key points. For those dancers personally affected by this (or whose children, friends or students have been affected), it would be good to include personal stories as well. MPs receive a lot of correspondence, and I've heard that the pieces which have the biggest impact are those that set the problem in a personal context. It is worth remembering too, that all correspondence with your MP is confidential. Both approaches are helpful and needed - if we can show *both* personal stories of those affected, *and* a high volume of concern from the wider public through use of this template, we are more likely to succeed.

It was great this morning to wake up to the news that the government has agreed visa free touring for UK artists in 19 EU countries! The countries with agreements in place are Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden. The government is now in negotiations with the remaining 8 EU countries, with the aim of reaching a similar agreement there. Whilst not perfect, this is a huge step forward and just goes to show what lobbying can achieve. The success is largely thanks to tireless campaigning from the Musicians Union on behalf of their members, and household names in the music industry stepping in and lending their voices to help those who are less well known. The question now is who will speak up for the interests of our dancers? Whilst this news will come as a welcome relief to companies, individual British dancers desperately need reciprocity to be reinstated with Europe for contracts too. If some big names in the dance world could find the courage and compassion to speak up for our ballet dancers, this would go a long way.

Yes, past adverts have also been limited to those who already had the right to work in the UK (which included EU nationals as well whilst we were still members). I suspect the cost and bureaucracy of getting visas for so many dancers necessitates that.