Arts and culture devastated by Covid crisis

Lynda McEwan

Covid-19 is having a devastating effect on the creative industry in the UK. Already on the frontline for brutal austerity cuts, the pandemic has exacerbated this trend.

With Rishi Sunak announcing recently that people will “have to consider changing the jobs they do in certain industries”, workers in the arts are rightly worried for their jobs.  

After the 2008 financial crisis the creative landscape of Britain changed dramatically. Libraries and local theatres were forced to close and funding for arts councils was massively reduced forcing many venues to rely on ticket sales instead. 

The impact of lockdown which closed all plays, concerts and cinemas, and won’t be lifted until possibly April 2021 for full capacity gigs, means that source of income has gone. 

Cineworld, who provides jobs for 6,000 people in the UK, has been forced to temporarily close its 127 cinemas due to US market closures affecting major studios delaying new releases.  

With the furlough scheme set to end this month to be replaced with the Job Support Scheme, workers will lose an extra 13% of their wages. Self-employed workers will receive only 20% of their earnings, and as a large proportion of the arts industry is made up of freelancers they are set to be worst hit.  

UK theatres generate £1.28 billion in revenue and employ 290,000 workers. It’s estimated that despite the £1.57 billion government support package over the summer, 70% of theatres could close before the year ends.  

The benefits of this sector aren’t just economic though, the arts are a necessary part of human life providing us with an outlet for stress and filling us with hope and joy.

As mental health issues sky rocket as a result of the uncertainty of what lies ahead, particularly as we seem to be in the beginnings of a second wave of Covid, access to the arts has never been more important.  

In Glasgow, budget cuts imposed at the beginning of lockdown have resulted in a shortfall of around £25 million for Glasgow Life, the city’s cultural and sporting charity which funds community venues. 

More than 100 museums, gyms and libraries have been unable to reopen. The Tory government’s loss of income scheme for local authorities does not cover ALEOs (arms-length external organisations).

The Scottish government has been slow to implement any scheme which would recognise organisations such as Glasgow Life.  

As Socialist Party Scotland has repeatedly said, workers should not pay the price for the pandemic. They must organise to fight against this purge of the creative industry.

Trade union membership has risen since the start of the Covid crisis. Unions like PCS’ culture group have defended workers taking strike action in the Tate Galleries. Bosses have used £7 million of government bailouts to maintain its highest earners level of pay instead of protecting the jobs of 313 of its lowest paid staff who have been made redundant. 

Many of these precarious workers will now be dependent on universal credit which has a five week wait period. The increased £20 a week implemented at the beginning of lockdown is also being cut.  

Privatised theatres and venues should be nationalised and brought under workers’ control to prevent an emergence into a wasteland of the arts industry in post-Covid Britain. 

Furlough should be extended to cover full wages for any worker who loses their job and test and trace should operate under public ownership and not for the profit of private companies like SERCO.  

Its clear capitalism has no answers for working-class people and has no strategy to navigate a safe way out of the pandemic. 

The world’s richest have increased their personal wealth by a staggering $10.2 trillion while the rest of society struggles to get by on failed government schemes. 

The wealth and resources of the capitalist elite should be used to invest in a planned economy with socialist policies to rescue the arts from the same fate as its most famous of Greek tragedies.