The importance of salary transparency in the Arts & Culture

Let's talk about money and the future of job adverts in Europe.

I never liked sharing what I was earning as a dancer because it was absolutely trash most of the time. I had completed a 4-year bachelor's program and still couldn’t pay my rent from some of the jobs I landed.

I did the jobs anyway.

As a (freelance) artist you have to grind and hustle, and hopefully, reap the benefits sometime in the future. The hustle part is real, but still, artists deserve to be paid fairly for their work.

To know what ‘fair pay’ means, minimum wages and education are needed. Education on understanding each sector’s standards and education on understanding your self-worth as an artist.

But how can we really educate artists on their sector’s standards and self-worth when they lack transparency?

Too often have I applied to a project without knowing its salary. And when I got the job, it turned out to be yet another trash salary. Unfortunately, I had already invested too much time, and often money, to say no.

So I said yes…

But by saying yes, I uphold a system that poisons the sector and continues to weaken my own position in the market as an artist.

Hearing your salary rate after getting a job doesn’t only force me to pretty much accept it (and yes that is the reality of being a freelance dancer for most), but without other salary examples, I had no criterion to understand what a good or bad salary entails.

So in the first years after I graduated, I said yes to salaries and project fees without even realizing it was a shitty rate until years later.

Photo by Mike Von on Unsplash

Now, depending on which country you are reading this from, you might have clear government regulations on what a minimum wage should be in your sector. There are some beautiful initiatives in countries like the Netherlands, Germany, and the UK, that promote fair pay and minimum wages in the Arts & Culture.

But as most artists are not bound by borders, it becomes rather difficult to educate artists on each country’s specific standards.

Therefore, I believe that salary transparency in job adverts is the key to educating the new generation of artists internationally more effectively.

By sharing salary ranges in job adverts, we create a transparent market where artists learn to compare salaries from different countries, and at the same time make a more educated decision on whether applying to the job would be worth their while.

Luckily, I am not the only one who thinks like this.

Last year, the European Union passed new transparency regulations that enforces companies in the EU to share salary ranges in job adverts.

While there are a lot of reasons why this is great for basically any type of industry (especially when there are hideous pay gaps between male and female employees), I believe that the Arts & Culture are going to reap the most benefits of these new regulations.

Like me, artists don’t like to talk about money because their pay is shit most of the time. The lack of transparency from all parties involved prevents the sector as a whole from really embracing ‘fair pay’ initiatives.

While the new transparency rules in Europe will take effect over a course of 3 years, we at Lanced are very busy creating a platform that is fully transparent and offers artists better insights into the market.

It’s because I am such an advocate for ‘fair practices’ myself, that I want these fundamentals to be incorporated into the tech that we are building.

Let’s not wait for regulations to improve the work field, let’s improve it ourselves from within!

To all artists, you have the power to improve the work field with every choice that you make. Do better than me!

-Wouter