Equity ballots West End workers in Pay Up! campaign

Equity, the performing arts and entertainment trade union, is asking West End performers and stage management to vote in an indicative ballot on strike action. The intention is to move producers closer to a reasonable multi-year settlement on pay, terms, and conditions.

Negotiations for a new West End agreement covering performers and stage management have been going on since December 2025. So far, they’ve been constructive. Equity is pleased with tentative proposals around improvements to maternity and paternity pay, wigs, hair, and makeup, and other terms.

Society of London Theatre (SOLT) is an industry body for London theatre owners and operators. Many, though not all, of its member venues are in the West End. It leads negotiations with unions.

However, SOLT’s proposals don’t add up to a package which meets the union’s reasonable expectations. Outstanding issues include pay, holiday, rehearsal working time, injury, and stage management differentials.

SOLT has also declined to offer payments for newly defined roles, like fight and social media captains, or resolve issues around stage management covering other roles.

Around 1,000 performers and stage management currently working across the West End come under the collective agreement. The overwhelming majority are Equity members. Members will take part in an online ballot to indicate their willingness to take strike action on Saturdays and implement an overtime ban.

First such ballot in West End since Thatcher

Additionally, members both currently working on a show and those who have worked on the West End in the past three years are being asked whether they back the union’s negotiating position. The union is balloting almost 3,000 members in total for their view. Equity is urging members to vote yes on both questions to help move talks forwards.

Equity has not conducted an indicative ballot of this type on the West End since Margaret Thatcher’s restrictions of trades union freedom in the 1980s.

Paul W Fleming, Equity general secretary, said:

Despite a positive and constructive start to negotiations, SOLT have made it clear that they are unwilling to make significant changes to the packages they have proposed. Those packages offer only a small percent above inflation over four years, after a record breaking period for West End revenue.

We hope a strong message from the workforce backing the core elements of our revised claim will support SOLT negotiators in moving their members to an acceptable settlement. Members and producers alike should be in no doubt that if a strong result in these ballots do not result in serious movement from SOLT, then a summer of disruption awaits.

SOLT has repeatedly reported record revenue over the last three years, where our members’ pay has barely kept pace with inflation, and minima have not yet returned to their pre-pandemic value. Whilst record revenue will not mean record profit for all producers, it’s clear that when suppliers, some of whom have doubled their costs since the pandemic, refuse to service productions, money is found to pay them.

Our members have waited in line to see their wages rise, and to have a more modern work-life balance in a precarious industry. In the smallest theatres, performers on the minimum earn less than the UK median wage per week, and all artists receive 20% less holiday weeks than most workers. If SOLT is serious about a modern industry, these negotiations must be a meaningful step forward. Producers need to pay up.

The ballot is online and is an indicative (ie consultative only, not statutory) ballot. It opened on Monday 27 April and will close on Monday 18 May.

Featured image via Equity