“The original six cohort members of this project were all part of the 2021 inclusive leadership cohort, which was a cohort was facilitated by BRIDGE, a local social justice organization here in the Berkshires, and supported by Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation and a bunch of community sponsors who supported that program," said Kristen van Ginhoven, co-founder and artistic director of Lenox-based WAM Theatre. “While we were in that program, there were various movements happening around the country around pay equity for workers. There was the Change Berkshire Culture, Change Museum Culture, We See You White American Theatre. There's a lot of different organizations across the country looking at pay equity, and we were tasked with creating a project. And a group of us really wanted to delve deeper into this issue of pay equity in arts and culture organizations and see where we could affect change going forward as part of our pandemic recovery, as part of our, this next phase of racial reckoning, and a larger social justice equity movement to try to help folks sustain themselves in the arts.”
“The timing of this is an acknowledgment that times have changed from 50 years ago working in cultural organizations, when the cost of living was different, when people's attitudes were different," said Janis Martinson, Executive Director of the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington. “A lot of the history of employment and cultural organizations in the past was that these positions were looked on as sometimes not professional. It was almost seen as sort of something you could do if you could afford to do that. It was a privilege to do the work, was the phrase that was used often, or it was seen as genteel, is another phrase that was used often. And now there's less tolerance for that perspective. We understand that that way of looking at things becomes exclusionary, and we want to make sure that compensation is solid enough that anyone can enter this field, and that it recognizes the professionalism and the expertise of the people who are in it.”
The study focused on entry-level and mid-level workers. van Ginhoven, who recently announced she will step down by the end of the year, says one of the major takeaways for the organizations involved in the study is that solidarity will be crucial for the industry to find a path forward.
“It was participatory research, so it was guided and led by folks who, they had a voice in the survey, they had a voice in the data," she told WAMC. "And of course, a lot of it were things that we knew as employers, but really the depth of it and the breadth of it has been stunning and really highlights how we have to as an industry work together to change this if we want to ensure retention of our arts and culture workers and if we want to ensure diversity in our arts and culture workers. Many of them cannot imagine a future for themselves. Many of them reported unpaid overtime or unpaid internships, many of them needed to have multiple jobs, or had other sources of income. A lot of them reported not having adequate benefits.”
“People can't pay off debt or invest in retirement or think kind of long term about their finances," said Martinson. "And then there's also the familial weight of this, which means that a lot of people in these positions are either depending on family or they're feeling unable to support their family when they're needed, and all of that leads to emotional and health burdens.”
Martinson says that ultimately, the project is an optimistic one.
“It acknowledges something that's been true for a long time and been getting worse," she told WAMC. "It acknowledges the role that these low salaries play in equity or lack of equity in the profession, in the industry, but it's also offering recommendations for where we can go from here. It recognizes what cultural organizations are already doing to try to make things better and more equitable, and there's a lot of that. And it also acknowledges that because this is a systemic issue, it needs a systemic response. We need to respond together.”
Like their counterparts around the country, arts organizations in the region have been under scrutiny over pay and labor conditions in recent months. In 2021, employees of MASS MoCA unionized to collectively bargain with the North Adams art museum’s management for more equitable contracts, and the Williamstown Theatre Festival continues to address complaints about racism, overwork, and low wages that led to the festival reorganizing its productions and operations.
