Equity - 'deal to save Oldham Coliseum is going too slow to save jobs'

Equity General Secretary Paul Fleming has criticised the ‘painfully slow’ negotiations to save Oldham Coliseum, after he travelled to Manchester to hold crunch talks with Arts Council England (ACE) over the jobs at risk at the theatre.

Speaking on the doorstep of Arts Council offices immediately after the high stakes talks, Mr Fleming said that whilst he thought a deal was close, it may come too late to save the jobs and work opportunities of Equity members, as the March 31 deadline for the theatre to close fast approaches.

Equity is the performing arts and entertainment trade union.

It is made up of more than 47,000 performers and creative workers, united in the fight for fair terms and conditions in the workplace.

In the meeting earlier today (Thursday), Equity members Victoria Brazier and Zoe Iqbal spoke about how important the Coliseum is for their income as actors, and challenged the Arts Council to do the right thing and make a clear funding commitment to Oldham Coliseum that will allow it to stop the redundancies and keep employing local creative workers.

The invitation to talks with ACE comes after Equity called a public meeting to Save Oldham Coliseum recently, attended by 400 people from the town.

Held at Oldham Coliseum itself, Arts Council England (ACE) had been invited to attend and explain to the local community why it had made the decision to cut 100% of its funding to the theatre these funding decisions.

However, ACE declined the invitation to attend.

Speaking as a snow blizzard settled outside of Arts Council offices, Equity chief Mr Fleming said “Come sleet or snow, we won’t stop our campaign to save Oldham Coliseum and the work it provides our members.

“Arts Council England gave no consideration to supporting good quality, union jobs in Oldham when they withdrew 100% of their funding from Oldham Coliseum.

"20% of theatre acting work in Greater Manchester is under threat as well as 70 permanent jobs.

"This is a symptom of a broken funding model that has seen them prioritise glorified receiving houses over locally produced theatre after almost two decades of reduced funding.

“The Arts Council is putting the emphasis on Oldham Council to put together a good proposal to plug the holes in this strategic decision.

"We need the local authority and the Arts Council to move at speed to approve a strategic plan to safeguard jobs, local investment, and the community’s artistic voice.

"Only a high quality producing theatre, rooted in its community in Oldham can achieve this.

“The Arts Council model of centralised funding where decisions are distant from artists and communities is shown to be a failure.

"Despite some sympathy with those who have to work within that framework, it shows Equity’s demands to increase, democratise and regionalise funding is more urgent now than ever.”

Ms Brazier, actor and Equity North West Councillor, said: “It is so important that creative workers in the North West have an opportunity to work locally, earn locally, and spend their wage locally.

"Having Oldham Coliseum, a local producing house that employs people in the local community, allows us to do this.

"To lose the Coliseum would be so damaging to the North West’s creative economy.

“So today I met with Arts Council England to ask them to do the right thing and Save Oldham Coliseum.”

Ms Iqbal, Equity member and an actor who recently performed in ROAD at Oldham Coliseum, added: “It’s really important to me that I’m able to work at places like Oldham Coliseum and earn a wage locally, near where I live.

"But it’s not just having local work that matters.

"Because Oldham Coliseum is embedded in its community, so much of the work it does with Roma and South Asian communities will be lost.

"Every year the Coliseum invites schools from across Oldham, Rochdale and Tameside to perform work by local writers on its stage and it is very sad that they won’t get to do that.

"The Arts Council can’t let that happen.

"Today I asked Arts Council England to do the right thing and save Oldham Coliseum.”

Arts Council England have responded to Equity's ongoing concerns by stating again that they remain committed to investing in performing arts in Oldham for the short-term future at least.

An Arts Council England spokesperson told the Chronicle: "We invited Equity to meet with us today to hear the concerns of their members.

"We don’t fully recognise the account that they have given of the meeting.

“Oldham Coliseum Ltd has been facing financial and governance challenges for some time and as guardians of public money we could not invest in an organisation at such a high risk.

"We’re standing by our commitment to invest £1.85 million in performing arts in Oldham over the next three years, which will create new opportunities for artists and audiences.” 

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