Roz Foyer: 'There’s an undercurrent of exploitation in Edinburgh'

Walk into any bar or coffee shop and I guarantee you it’ll be packed with people of all nationalities, crafts, occupations and disciplines. 

Fringe season is upon us. Good luck and godspeed to all those involved.

Like most events that have stood the test of time, each year tends to get bigger. Of course, some of the biggest names in arts and comedy have walked the cobbled streets of Auld Reekie – Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Lin-Manuel Miranda plus many more.  I’d imagine, even for the now most famous of faces, they may have boosted their status but they’ll have hardly boosted their incomes.

Events like the Fringe also tend to get pricier. For those who can afford to perform at the Fringe, the large majority will be fully aware that it’s hardly a land of riches and excess. It’s a zero-sum game of, if you’re lucky, breaking even but for most it’s about how much income they’re prepared to lose for just that smidgen of exposure or the glory that lies in a favourable review. The mile is not lined with gold.

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There’s an undercurrent of exploitation emanating through Edinburgh. An ugly underbelly built upon public space being handed over for private profit, zero-hero contracts, and exploitative volunteering practices. Whilst the artists will put on a show and may even make the audience laugh, the smiles hide a grim reality. Unaffordable accommodation, increased living costs, registration and venue hire, plus a whole host of other inordinate expenses, prices more and more working-class folk out of performing.

Arts, culture and theatre should be accessible. These spaces allow our movement to learn more about their working-class history. If people from our movement are only going to get limited access to cultural spaces, you best believe we will make the moment count.

Chopped Liver and Unions from the Blue Fire Theatre Company is performing until August 24. It tells the story of Sara Wesker a forgotten heroine of our time who fought to improve the pay and conditions of female garment workers in London’s east end in the 1920s.

It’s no surprise to me that Sara isn’t as well-known as she should be. The historic female figures of our movement often aren’t. We, the women within our movement, share our history by telling ‘HerStory’ – a project from the STUC Women’s Committee aiming to empower trade union women with the confidence, courage, and skills to share a story of their own.

Trailblazers like Sara Wesker fought for better pay and conditions. We follow in her footsteps and all those who have come after her. It’s damning that the fight for equality, parity, and recognition – the same values that Sara and the Stevenson Sisters demanded 100 years ago – must continue to this day.

If we do not heed the lessons of history, the mistakes of the past are at risk of being repeated. Insecure work, low pay and the denigration of our public services can lead people, bereft of hope, to turn to nefarious far-right disrupters who want to divide our communities.

Chopped Liver and Unions tells the story of those who fight for the persecuted and demand equality. These are the traditions of our movement. They are principles of our people. We are delighted this has been brought to life in this show and look forward to a hugely successful run at this year's Fringe.

It’s also no surprise to me that the battles Sara fought – under-representation, exploitative conditions, low pay – are still the battles our movement faces today. Today, three quarters of local government workers are female. Yet they’ve seen their pay fall 25% in real terms since 2010. These are low-paid workers. Half of all local government workers earn less than £25,000.

In the here and now, as the Fringe kicks off, we could be seeing the rubbish piling high and it’ll be no laughing matter. Edinburgh City Council cannot hide the fact that their local government workers look set to go on strike again over further cuts to their pay and conditions.

This isn’t a performance. This isn’t a show. This is real life. These are some of the lowest-paid workers throughout the public sector having to, yet again, organise within their workplaces to secure pay rises or changes to their conditions that merit their effort.

No one, least of all the workers, wants to do this dance again. If we are to avoid the scenes witnessed in 2022, with visitors coming to the Fringe faced with smells and sights befitting of Reekie’s title, there must be a serious offer put on the table from COSLA.

But the Scottish Government has a leading role too. They’re the ones with the purse strings. Limited in scope, yes, but not powerless. As well as the Barnett Consequentials that will come from the UK Government’s pay offer to public sector workers, the Scottish Government have tax powers they can use. It’s about whether politicians think paying public sector workers fairly is a price worth paying.

And more to the point, why again do some of the lowest-paid in our society have to cast themselves as the antagonists in this plot? They don’t want another strike played out to a live audience of, at least, 250,000 people. Workers don’t want to be the pantomime villains on the quest for redemption. They just want a fair deal and a fair wage for a fair day's work. Any show that ascribes to that storyline is worth the price of admission. 

We want to show the best of our cities and the best of our public services. There needn’t be this merry-go-round of workers taking strike action. We can finally bring the curtain down, to rapturous applause, on the industrial strife that all too needlessly curtails the efforts of workers.

Roz Foyer is the general secretary of the STUC