This blog post explores just one element from recent research I’ve been involved in about Musicians’ Work (to be published in a co-authored chapter in a book about Decent Work).

In this post, I ask questions about how careers advisory practice can include the role of unions for creative and cultural workers, specifically in this context the Musicians’ Union (MU). Clients can be encouraged to reflect upon what support a union may give them, but also how being a union member helps to contribute to something bigger and making work better for a larger community of people.

Careers practitioners have an important role to support future cultural workers such as Musicians and Artists without ignoring the  challenges of carving out such a career. In England, where I live and work, many creative and cultural workers do not feel valued by society due to government policy which gives less value to the creative arts. Trade unions such as the MU support workers and are an important part of the Arts ecosystem; also helping to ensure that society has a thriving Arts scene which makes the world a much better and happier place.  

I’ve been interested in the work of creative and cultural workers such as Artists and Musicians for a long time. As a careers practitioner these university courses were in my caseload and I’ve researched them in a number of projects. I have always had a great respect for people who have talents in these areas, as I can claim no musical or artistic abilities myself although I love the arts and they are a crucial part of my life and leisure.

  

Researching Musicians’ working lives

So I was really pleased to work with Jason Woolley who is a Musician and Music lecturer in research he was doing. Jason did research interviews with Musicians about their working lives and we used a Decent Work lens to reflect upon what he found out. The research explores the experiences of independent, established, portfolio career Musicians working in the Rock/Pop/Indie/Jazz Live Music scene. 

Successive industry reports from UK Music have highlighted that on average many Music Creators (including performers, composers, and producers) earn significantly less than other professions.  A continuing theme is the remuneration gap between earners in the Music industry: “A small proportion of creators in the industry do earn exceptionally well”, but  “…these figures do not reflect the financial struggles of many Music creators” (UK Music, 2019). The average Music Creator’s annual wage in 2019 was £23,059.  UK Music (2019) goes on to report that the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) has calculated that 72% of workers in the Music, Performing and Visual arts are self-employed, which contrasts with ONS figures of 15% across the whole UK working population. Whilst self-employed creative industries workers are often ‘associated’ with autonomous and creatively fulfilling working lives, they also often face job insecurity and financial instability. This leads many Musicians to juggle a portfolio of income streams from musical and non-musical work.

As one part of the research, we were interested in asking musicians about their attitude to the Musicians’ Union as a vehicle to insulate and support them in their work, as well as the scope to help improve working conditions more widely. Trade union membership is positively associated with the ILO’s conception of Decent Work and the ‘Social Dialogue’ for workers in having a voice.

Ambivalence to Trade Union membership

Responses about the MU were ambivalent (just under half of the participants were Union members) and some Musicians preferred to draw on more informal networks for advice and mutual support rather than a formal union. The Musicians we spoke to who were members of the union tended to join due to practical things such as insurance rather than with a hope of improving working conditions. For some, there appeared to an acceptance that conditions will vary and in some instances will be bad, and this is just part of being a Musician, that needs to be endured, especially when developing ‘original’ work rather than doing ‘function’ work.  Our participants certainly valued ‘dignity’ and ‘meaningfulness’ above remuneration, but this did lead them to often defaulting to individualist assumptions regarding creativity and career success, which sometimes didn’t align well with being a member of a formal union.

Approaches to the labour market employed by our participants appeared to have worked for our group of established Musicians. However, questions are raised especially considering Covid-19 as to whether more needs to be done in active labour market policy as well as within the Musicians’ community itself to ensure that individual Musicians of all career stages have reasonable levels of social protection. Help Musicians is a good example of an organisation that has given direct support to Musicians adversely affected by the pandemic.

The role of collective action

Just this week, a government report was launched recommending that music streaming needs to be fairer and fixed to give greater remuneration to Musicians as opposed to record labels and streaming companies. The collective action of the Musicians Union and others has been important in bringing this issue to the fore and is an example of how collective action can act at a national level to argue for the interests of Musicians. In contrast to other unions that tend to have members working for large organisations (such as teachers and doctors), the Musicians’ Union operates with a much more diverse membership and gives a lot of attention to working to influence wider policymakers (e.g., on fixing streaming) and bigger employers of Musicians.

What are the implications for careers practitioners who advise budding musicians? 

My view is that talking to budding musicians about the role of the Musicians’ Union should be a part of career conversations.  The benefits of becoming a member do seem to be clear, although there may also be debates about how to make the most of membership and how membership fees adapt to musicians on varied incomes.

Many musicians who choose this career pathway have strong ‘intrinsic motivation’, even ‘calling’ to do what they do, but that may not be enough to ensure they will be able to navigate the complex terrain of Musical work.  

As practitioners, we should reject notions that work in the Arts is not ‘real work’. The Arts are valuable in many ways above and beyond the economic returns of the sector,  and there should be ways to ensure a strong Arts career ecosystem exists and that Musicians and other Artists are supported appropriately especially at the early stages of their careers.  Trade Unions in the cultural sector have a vital role to play in this ecosystem.