RAGPICKERS

[ragpickers]

National minimum wage: work experience and internships - Detailed guidance - GOV.UK

Governmental guidance on work experience and internships can be helpful. Unpaid labour in charitable organizations is still legal...

[ragpickers]

Mainstream press starts being concerned about modern day slavery.

[ragpickers]

ACE warns that relying too heavily on an unpaid workforce could jeopardise the chances of organisations achieving NPO status. 

Great news! The LSO changes its intern scheme from September. Arts Council England spokesperson: National Portfolio Organisations relying too heavily on an unpaid workforce risk their chances of retaining NPO status in future investment rounds.

[willlaren]

"Milk N’ Cookies Money"

[ragpickers]

Direct action at the Barbican Centre yesterday night.

London Symphony Orchestra, your policies are out of tune.

Pay Your Interns.

[thefutureinterns-blog-blog]

To The London Symphony Orchestra, We have recently been made aware that you are advertising for and currently using unpaid interns within your organisation. We have a number of concerns that we feel you should address. Firstly, by asking someone to work “9.30am – 6.00pm Monday to Friday plus...

[ragpickers]

Why Letter to The London Symphony Orchestra

Comment on why Ragpickers co-signed Future Interns' letter to The London Symphony Orchestra:

"Ragpickers usually focus their attention at the issues around labour and exploitation in art world, and we think that LSO's employment practices and long term unpaid contracts are unacceptable and unfair to the young people. They devalue their contributions to the society and exacerbate the class division between those who could afford to work for free and thus get a more 'prestigious' and presumable less alienated job placement, and those who simply can not afford to work for free for eight and half hours five days a week. Full time unpaid marketing intern position in LSO proves to us that situation in high profile music organisations is no more  humane than within other fields that exploit interns or volunteers. We think there should be a higher of accountability for the promotion of inequality and exploitative labour practices in our society. This is something such internationally renowned organisations as LSO should be really ashamed to do.

Promised 'benefits' such as discounts in Barbican and pennies for sandwiches that are suggested in the advertisement only mean more consumption of Barbican goods and hence perpetuation of this vicious circle. 'Reasonable' expenses seem to be a contradiction in terms since unpaid labour is unreasonable and inflated."

[precariousworkersbrigade]

CORPORATISATION OF ARTS (Precarious Workers Brigade)

Open Meeting, 7 - 9pm

Wednesday 29th January 2014.

The Common House, Unit 5E, 5 Pundersons Gardens, London E2 9QG

http://www.commonhouse.org.uk/about-2/

Join us for the first open meeting in this year to open up the...

[artweekly-blog]

[It is 2014 and unpaid internships still exist, and I won’t rest until they don’t. Rather than share personal stories (which I have done countless times), I have scrapped emotionally bombarding people and instead encourage you to join me in naming and shaming galleries and...

[ragpickers]

Waiting for Living Wage, 1909-1014. Pro-female suffrage propaganda postcard designed by Catharine Courtauld and printed at the Suffrage Atelier. Headed 'Waiting for a Living Wage'' the black and white postcard depicts an exhausted female worker and refers to the powerless situation of women employed in the sweated industries. The message being that working conditions for these women will only improve once women won the right to vote and gained a voice in parliament. This design was also published in poster format, both in black and white and hand-coloured.

The artist Catharine Courtauld was a member of the Suffrage Atelier founded in London in February 1909. Its aim was: 'to encourage Artists to forward the Women's Movement, and particularly the Enfranchisement of Women, by means of pictorial publications.' The Atelier artists specialised in hand-made wooden block prints, stencilling and etchings and produced visually powerful posters and postcards to publicise the pro-suffrage campaign.

http://collections.museumoflondon.org.uk/Online/object.aspx?objectID=object-454021

[thefutureinterns-blog-blog]

On the 14th December, The Future Interns staged a direct action at The Serpentine Gallery in Central London. It was a protest against The Serpentine’s decision to ‘employ’ a full time unpaid ‘volunteer’. We will be maintaining pressure on the gallery until they agree to abandon any use of unpaid labour.

[ragpickers]

Records from After Work event on 19-11-13

AFTER WORK - Mark Fisher, Ramona, Carl Cederstrom/ Peter Fleming, Preeti Paul, Nina Wakeford and Federico Campagna.

Part 1- https://www.dropbox.com/s/9cu2p3kj9m4ir2x/After%20Work%20part%201%2C%2019-11-13.wav

Part 2- https://www.dropbox.com/s/otarcqubzrkw563/After%20Work%20part%202%2C%2019-11-13.wav

Location: LG01, New Academic Building, Goldsmiths College Cost: Free Department: Visual Cultures Time: 19 November 2013, 19:30 - 21:30

[ragpickers]

ITEM #11

Ragpicker’s name: Anonymous

Title: With love from Jay

Year: 2013

Employer: White Cube

Medium: paper

Size: A4

Description:

"…a letter I received after my four month unpaid internship... quite sad that the majority of the email was taken up by reminding me the 'confidentiality agreement' is still in force, instead of a proper thank you."

[ragpickers]

We are a part of FUTURE INTERNS!

A day of awareness and activism around internships and precarious work. Followed by an evening of Latin Music hosted by 3 cosas living wage campaign. The Future Interns 2013 event will be an opportunity to hear about the amazing work going on to fight back against the culture of unpaid work. As well as bringing together speakers it will be an opportunity to meet other interns and take part in workshops. Ultimately it will be a platform for interns to shape their future working conditions. We will have workshops from Precarious Workers Brigade and Ragpickers. Speakers will include Dr Sophie Hope and Charlotte Gerada, Mark Fisher and Federico Campagna.

[ragpickers]

ITEM # 8

Ragpicker’s name: Katie Goodwin

Title: Dustbust

Year: 2006/2011

Employer: A VFX company, Australia

Medium: Digital Animation

Size: 132 minutes

Description (your personal story):

In 2006 I spent 3 weeks digitally removing dust / “dustbusting” and almost went insane in the process. It is a mundane job that if done well the labour is invisible. I kept the script of the removal marks and 5 years later made a feature length cyclical animated drawing which simultaneously reveals and erases the dust. I dedicate it to all the cleaners in the world.

[ragpickers]

We would be happy to receive new objects from you! Look what we've got!

Dear readers, we still welcome your contributions! Please send us your testimonies to: [email protected]

ITEM # 7

Ragpicker’s name: Piotr Krzymowski

Title: One Hundred Trillion Dollars

Year: 2008

Employer: Halcyon Gallery

Medium: Banknote

Size: 74x149 mm

Description: As I have learned during my recent post as an artist assistant, One Hundred Trillion Dollars is the going rate for Zimbabwe's highest denomination note, the biggest ever produced for legal tender - and a national symbol of monetary policy run amok. At one point in 2009, the bill couldn't buy a a box of six eggs in the capital of Harare. The banknote, among hundreds of others from all around the world, was also used in the production of the artworks by the Colombian artist Santiago Montoya. The publicity material for his exhibition „The great swindle“ in Halcyon Gallery in London makes much of the fact that all of it was made using real money - presumably partly to impress the kind of collector who lights his cigars with £50 notes. One would think that One Trillion Dollars would be enough for a decent salary for an artist assistant. But the European currency exchange rates are cruel. Too cruel to increase the minimum wage, shorten 42.5 weekly working hours, pay on time, guarantee a contract and a safe notice period as well as provide paid holiday. One can only hope that, as it is written on the Zimbabwe banknote, „I promise to pay the bearer on demand...“.

[ragpickers]

First piece of body art in our collection!

ITEM #6

Ragpicker’s name: Sara Benaglia

Title: Untitled

Year: 2013

Gallery: unknown

Medium: body art

Description:

One years ago I worked as assistant for an artist who was five years older than me. She was beautiful and kind, well dressed and superthiny. Time after time I gave her more of my energy: I liked to lose myself in her projects and deliriums, I entered with all my body and faith in her research daily. She was a light for me. But then, one launch divided us. It was sunny in Milan, we went out to eat something in our favourite place and I told her about some question that a friend journalist made to me about her. She didn’t like my answers, she felt like betrayed by me. Back at home, I couldn’t touch anymore boxes with installations ready for departure. Then she gave me false money as earnings, an airbus ticket, the address of my hotel and she told me “you’ve just stopped working for me. You’ll come only for vacation, they’ve just send you the online accrditation". When I woke up the day after our discussion I had these cuts on my back!