#lso payinterns

[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.

[ragpickers]

Direct action at the Barbican Centre yesterday night.

London Symphony Orchestra, your policies are out of tune.

Pay Your Interns.

[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."