With x-mas just around the corner and all the gifts wrapped under that perfectly decorated pine tree. As the anticipation builds, interrupting the final two nights sleep before His day. Whilst distant family satellite in ready for an unhealthy dose of nostalgia and brandy. One little present is leaving the front of house ICA staff wishing they’d been given coal.
Over the past week, some of the lowest paid staff members (the ones which guard your coat at the cloak room, check your tickets at the cinema, invigilate and discuss the dull artwork in the poorly curated Bloomberg New Contemporaries show) have received an ultimatum; take an approximate 10% cut from your wages or lose your job. What amounts to nothing other than passive-aggressive bullying by managers, a new contract has been drafted that would see paid breaks removed under the new working conditions and if this contract is not signed, the staff have no job in the new year.
“Paid breaks, that’s a bit of a luxury! They’re not even working then.” I hear the more conservative of the readers cry. Well let’s do a little simple maths, using conservative figures of course, to establish what this actually amounts to. On a £7.25 hourly wage (as advertised on their website) working a generous 30 hours per week, expecting at a minimum 3 hours for lunch over this period, the staff would currently earn a gross of £217.50 a week. Working, again generous considering times between shows, 50 weeks a year comes to a meagre annual gross pay of £10, 875 (obviously before tax an NI deductions). Under the contracts proposed to kick in at the beginning of 2012 (a year likely to see increased foot flow and revenue to the ICA, especially as events are set to take place opposite) this would see this hypothetical weekly wage reduced by £21.75 a week and £1,087.50 a year. For those that this is their sole income, that is extremely substantial not a luxury.
So, as the sun sets for the final few days before the ICA closes until the new year. Their staff have the wonderful gift of choice, either to work at a greatly reduced daily rate or start the new year in the dole queue. I know which one I’d rather choose #solidaritywithunemployedworkers
Have a great x-mas!
AAC x
p.s. The ICA telephone number is 020 7930 0493 and twitter @ICALondon
artsagainstcuts 
If someone could post an email address here where the public who use the gallery could email and make themselves heard directly I think that would be a small, yet useful step in the right direction. It is very sad to hear that the people who really make the whole institution function are being bullied, dare I say blackmailed into an unreasonable salary. It would be interesting to see how these cuts are being implemented elsewhere at the ICA…especially in the case of Mr Muir for instance, after all a leader should lead from the front, surely?
I hope you all manage to make yourselves heard.
For anyone wishing to email a member of senior ICA staff they merely need to place the adressee’s firstname dot surname at ica.org.uk. So, hypothetically speaking, one would address an email to:
Gregor.Smith@ICA.org.uk
http://www.artsjobs.org.uk/index.php?id=25&ne_source=dailynews_plain&ne_post_id=73495
There needs to be support for the casual worker, the exploitation in museums and galleries is extreme. casual contracts and internships. the gallery assistants at whitechapel have just been given a 3% pay rise after 3years of no rises and the gallery is now emplying invidulators at a lower pay lever than the gallery assistants but the job seems to be the same http://www.artsjobs.org.uk/arts-job/post/gallery-invigilators/
For anyone vaguely following this, after an internal struggle the staff at the ICA managed to retain their pay. Thanks for everyone’s support.
Such a sad thing to happen to a once great Institution.