WHY DO I HAVE TO PAY TO JOIN?
The union needs a capacity to campaign for better employment rights, and it retains a professional team to do this. The larger the membership, the more effective our ability to respond to challenges from bad employers will be. Union membership comes with a lot of benefits. We are not-for-profit. The money is spent on things like research, campaigns and legal advice to our members by qualified employment law specialists, along with lawyers that are retained by the union.
WHAT IS THE BENEFIT OF JOINING A UNION?
By joining Bectu you are strengthening the only union that is working to make Unscripted TV and the industry at large better for the people who work in it.
Our ultimate goal is to change the conditions we work under, the way we are hired, and the way we are paid.
MIGHT A UNION CALL STRIKES, POTENTIALLY ALIENATING THE ARTISTS FROM THE STUDIOS?
Bectu is a democratic union. There has never been any inclination to use strikes as a tool to challenge employers in the Unscripted production sector. The threat of some limited industrial action (e.g. a collective refusal to work overtime) can sometimes strengthen negotiations, but we would only consider balloting for this kind of action in the last resort – and it would involve getting over all kinds of legal hurdles.
HOW MUCH OF A SAY DO WE HAVE IN UNION DECISIONS? ARE THERE DEMOCRATIC DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES?
Yes. Unions only ever make decisions democratically. By contrast, freelancers working at companies without an active union currently have very little influence over decisions directly affecting their working life.