Bectu responds to failure to pay workers on collapsed Angels in the Asylum production

Head of Bectu Philippa Childs said: “The collapse of Angels in the Asylum and failure to pay people who worked on the production is unfortunately nothing new in the creative industries. But it clearly demonstrates the precarity and lack of protections that a largely freelance workforce continues to face.

“While Bectu is doing all it can to support affected members, and some of those impacted are eligible for government payments, such protections are limited to employees.  Existing systems like the Redundancy Payments Service don’t cover the vast majority who worked on the production, who are freelancers, leaving some many thousands of pounds out of pocket.

“This case underlines only too well why the long‑promised appointment of a Freelance Champion is now urgent. Workers operating as freelancers repeatedly fall through the gaps of employment law, losing out entirely when productions collapse.

“Creative workers are treated as “freelancers” in contract, so denied both the protections of employment law and access to basic safety nets. A properly empowered Freelance Champion could play a crucial role in addressing these systemic failures, by pressing for reforms that reflect the reality of how freelance labour is used in the creative industries, and ensuring workers are not left unsecured and unprotected when things go wrong.

“Bectu has previously proposed a number of possible solutions to this problem, including requiring productions to deposit funds in escrow or put a completion bond in place, so that wages are covered before work starts.

“Once the champion is appointed, Bectu will be engaging with them to highlight this ongoing and unacceptable problem, that leaves talented workers who are critical to the success of the industry unfairly exposed.”