Fair pay chain table proposals for marketing and communications: respond now!
Design: Graphic Happiness
The Culture Marketing and Communications chain table of fairPACCT is hereby presenting three fair pay proposals and asking for responses from all stakeholders: preferably by Wednesday, November 1, 2023, and no later than Wednesday, November 15. Please use the form below to do so. These are a Manifesto on the value of cultural marketers and a Whitepaper with seven related practical examples. Also involved is a comparison of MarCom functions in culture with those in the BV Nederland. Feedback by fairPACCT and the chain table based on the responses received will be done by December 1.
Manifesto ‘Without culture marketers no audience. Without audiences no culture’
Herewith, the chain table presents its Manifesto, after thorough consultation and a final GO. This Manifesto with seven key points emphasizes the crucial role of marketing and communication for participants, cultural sector and society. Together, the president and members of the table want to draw attention to the impact their sector has had and will continue to have. This is a crucial step toward a brighter future for culture marketing and communications.
For consultation:
Powerful and inspiring case studies in Whitepaper
The chain table’s white paper contains seven powerful and inspiring practical examples under the motto “From manifesto to reality. Network organization Culture Marketing has provided input to all of this. They show that marketing and communication in the cultural sector extend far beyond advertising campaigns and ticket sales. It is about promoting innovation, connecting and making culture accessible to everyone. The Whitepaper shows this impact concretely at a variety of organizations: theater company, concert hall, music venue/theater, national support institution, pop venue, museum, festival.
For consultation:
First comparison with five job levels between the BV Netherlands and the cultural sector
Based on a survey of self-employed workers, a reference framework from an independent researcher with cultural collective bargaining agreements and general national data, the chain table identified five job levels in marketing and communications. It has compared the remunerations used in the BV Nederland with those of the cultural sector. This shows that cultural collective agreements lag behind. Updating is necessary to stop outflow of workers in culture marketing and communication to other sectors.
For consultation:
Toward innovative rate guidelines
The chain table has made great strides in defining existing rate guidelines with five job levels for different disciplines, but at the same time realizes that current cultural collective bargaining agreements are traditional and conservative. Therefore, the table is working on a new model to provide the cultural sector with appropriate guidelines that contribute to innovation. Among other things, this will be discussed in the chairmen’s meeting of the fairPACCT Chain Tables: after all, chain-wide working is crucial, especially for professionals in MarCom, to avoid fragmentation.
Engagement with social partners and other stakeholders
April 2023 is the independent study “Cultural Marketing and Communication in Fund and Project Grant Applications. How funds and grant makers deal with cultural marketing and communication costs in project applications.’ published. Made on behalf of the chain table. This shows that targeted engagement of the chain table is needed to further explain the relevance, current developments and costs of culture marketing and communication. The Manifesto and Whitepaper are now the beginning of that. But discussions are also needed with social partners and other stakeholders, among other things in relation to the intended sectoral covenant on the implementation of fair pay. With the aim of drastically changing the cultural labor market and guaranteeing fair pay for supporting positions such as cultural marketers and others.
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Download the entry form here*:
* Please e-mail the completion form back to fairpacct@platformacct.nl preferably by Nov. 1 and no later than Nov. 15.
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Read on about what preceded:
Brief history
After an exploration, the Council for Culture and the Social and Economic Council released the advisory report “Passion Valued” in 2017. The earning potential of workers in the cultural and creative sector lags behind, they noted. The councils called for the development of guidelines for reasonable compensation. Based on this, a Labor Market Agenda appeared in 2017 with three spearheads: structural social dialogue, strengthening earning capacity, improving working conditions. Also, the Fair Practice Code emerged with three principles: fair pay, fair share, fair chain.
Survey of self-employed workers
Network organization Culture Marketing conducted a survey of marketing and communications professionals working as self-employed in the cultural sector in February 2022. 144 self-employed professionals answered the survey questions about hourly rates. Of these 144 respondents, a quarter worked for two years or less, half for between two and 10 years and another quarter for more than 10 years. The self-employed are involved in both executive and strategic assignments. Management and consulting are a lot less common. Marketers work mainly for the presenting and producing performing arts, festivals and museums. According to the respondents, the clients in particular have too little knowledge about what constitutes a market-based hourly rate:
“It is disproportionate in the cultural sector to what is paid for the same knowledge/expertise in other sectors. Furthermore, there is no consideration of experience in years, in other words, junior, medior or senior. For freelancers, everything is often scaled under one rate.” In addition, clients often do not move with the times: “To my feeling, for freelance cultural marketers, the market rate has been the same (€45-50) for almost a decade. It doesn’t seem to increase with inflation. Recently in the stage collective agreement there is a provision about zzp’ers and several clients seized on this with me to actually want to pay less than before that provision was there. They literally take the ‘at least’ 40% higher for zzp in 2021 as ‘exactly’ 40%.”
In addition, cultural institutions shift the problem of insufficient budgets to their contractors. As a result, the self-employed are expected to just conform to what they are offered: “Many clients say they don’t have a budget and want you to do something for free, at a friend’s price or for your own portfolio.”
Program fairPACCT and composition Chain Table from 2022 onward
Platfom ACCT’s three-year fairPACCT program began as of 2022 with the help of OCW funding to concretize fair pay. The Culture Marketing and Communication (MarCom) Chain Table started in October 2022. It currently consists of 12 members: six working professionals, five working professionals at various types of cultural organizations and a representative from a professional training program. Joan Nunnely, an expert in strategic personnel and talent management plus a city council member, among others, is independent chair. Hilde Smetsers of Culture Marketing functions as advisor.
Terms of reference for assignment work in cultural collective bargaining agreements
Soon after in December 2022, the Chain Table commissioned the report ‘Fair pay assignment work marketing and communications in the cultural sector. Reference framework for existing collective agreement jobs, grading, hourly rates.’ by independent research firm Social Finance Matters. Here, ten collective bargaining agreements were studied in the cultural fields of work in which workers are active according to the above survey. Because marketing and communications professionals outside the cultural sector work in virtually every industry, the report says it makes little sense to include collective bargaining agreements from entirely different sectors in the comparison. For a more general comparison, however, use was made of (broader) research by freelancer platform Jellow, on the remuneration position of self-employed professionals in marketing and communications. In particular, the researcher looked at types of jobs and work, forms of grading, level of salaries, zzp surcharge in hourly rates, relevant fees and intellectual property provisions.
Proceedings of funds and grant makers
In April 2023, as a follow-up to the Reference Framework, the SFM office, commissioned by the Chain Table, presented the report “Cultural Marketing and Communication in Fund and Project Grant Applications. How funds and grantmakers deal with cultural marketing and communication costs in project applications.’ This examined the practices of 17 funders and grantmakers: the six national cultural funds, six private cultural funds and seven governments, in addition to OCW particularly municipalities and provinces about whom details had been reported. Relevant findings. Overhead/regular costs are often excluded. Also, marketing and communication are rarely explicitly mentioned in the formal criteria. The possibility of allocation to project activities is often unclear. The relationship between reimbursable cost types remains vague.
Conditions vary, hindering co-financing. Provisions on fees to be paid to MarCom professionals are lacking or are not substantiated. Interviews have shown that funders often expect that issues are already (partly) answered in the marketing plan to be sent along with an application. In general, funders do not consider it a positive signal if strategy development regarding marketing and communication is started only after the starting shot for a project has already been fired. Furthermore, according to the researcher, it is good to realize that funds and subsidy providers view the role of MarCom professionals much more broadly than as ‘marketers’ of cultural products. A shift toward public outreach is evident among all the funders surveyed, in some cases with an emphasis on diversity and inclusion.
Learn more
Completion form (You can e-mail the completion form back preferably before November 1 and no later than November 15 to fairpacct@platformacct.nl)
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