“It’ll be great exposure” “if you can do this one for free, we’ll pay you next time” “are you going to get a real job?”

From designers to actors, musicians, dancers, camera crews, photographers and many many many more. We’ve all heard these phrases and a thousand more which seek to undermine the importance and integrity of creative work.

Musicians have been organising as a union since 1893. Yet many people still don’t understand that music is also work. This myth, often rooted in the idea that if you love something then it can’t be work, is at the core of many of the challenges musicians face. From contemporary fair pay campaigns like Fix Streaming and the push for universal basic income, to calling on the government to extend Equality Act 2010 protections to protect freelancers too.

For meaningful change to happen, it is vital that every member of the labour movement shares their solidarity with creatives and knows in their hearts and minds that creatives are workers, that they can organise and unionise for the rights as workers and, whether employed of freelance, their rights as workers matter and should be protected.

We invite creatives to design an original poster on the theme “Creative work is work”. The full specifications can be found below.