A call to end free labor in the arts

Often times in a particular industry or community a way of operating becomes so entrenched that it is accepted without conscious study of its effects or investigation into its origins. My first exposure to the arts as a commercial concern was in theater. I worked untold hours for no pay, building my resume and sharpening my talents. I violated federal labor laws and O.S.H.A standards daily, and it was all legal or unimportant because I was not an employee but a volunteer. I bought into the idea of, "paying my dues" because everybody else I was competing with did and because those who were teaching me told me it was the way things were.

Now two decades later I am in the arts again, this time as a fashion writer and a stylist. Again I am being told that I must work for free in order to make a living at some undetermined future point. Now however, I have rent, bills, and expenses. Now if I were to buy into the "system" I could very well end up starving, homeless, and in serious medical trouble. I would have a great "book" or a list of credits to show prospective employers if I were lucky enough to survive a New York Winter. Consequently out of the most pressing practicality, I have rejected the idea of working for free to become worthy of pay later on. I have only accepted unpaid assignments if they will result in pay upon the very next job from that employer. Or with my writing, I have been accepting work from magazines that have allowed me to increase my exposure and readership in a dramatic way. My latest writing, "job" with Style-ology will be the last unpaid writing work I ever take.

My constant exposure to requests to work for free and the relentless expectation that it is proper to ask artists of all types to do so has moved me to examine with great depth and angry focus the causes of this phenomenon and the case against it. I have come to three major conclusions:

1. Unknown artistic talent is not valued by our society.
2. The commonly accepted business model in the arts of the expectation of unpaid work is not accepted in any other business.
3. The system perpetuates itself only because the talent allows it.


When push comes to shove, cultures and societies show you what they value by where they put their money. If an entrepreneur opened a restaurant and made it publicly known that she or he did not plan to pay their employees but rather that people should work for her or him because it would be a, "great opportunity to gain exposure and experience", that business would have zero applicants. This would be equally true for virtually any other business. However in creative and artistic pursuits such assumptions are presumed daily. The assumption exists because the holders of the purse strings have learned the same cultural lesson as the prospective employees: dishwashers will not work for free but creative people will. This is a cyclical and cynical loop that reinforces itself. Our culture, however, consistently proves its own thinking to be incorrect by the exorbitant sums it will pay for the works of creative artists who "prove themselves". Our culture has consistently allowed creative people to starve to death or die of illnesses and then posthumously elevated the value of their works to an astronomical level. This is madness of the highest order. We build billion dollar buildings to house artistic creations and routinely pay out millions of dollars to writers, directors and actors. Do we feel it's okay not to offer those starting out minimum wage so they can pay their bills and have a place to live?

The only way to stop this is to band together and refuse to accept it. Do not work for free. Require minimum wage to accept any work from any business. If a business cannot afford to pay someone seven to eight dollars an hour, they need to redo their business plan. If they can afford to and refuse to, then, to be blunt they are ethically repulsive people. We as artists must show our prospective employers that we value ourselves. Can any of us look in the mirror and say, "I am not worth minimum wage"? If you read this and it resonates with you, please circulate it.