Dues Referendum 2014 - what are basic dues for?

At a recent referendum info meeting, a member who doesn't often work in theatre asked what they get for their basic dues each year. They understood that working dues were related to the costs of negotiating and administering a contract they were engaged on, but basic dues were harder to grasp. Arden and I listed several things that all members get, regardless of work patterns, but I'm not entirely convinced we made the sale, as it were.

Any of the individual items we might talk about, regardless of what they cost, are only worth the value an individual member places on them. So, for instance, an automatic health and wellness benefit that is, on paper, worth three-quarters of the basic dues rate all by itself, the member found to be not worth their time to use. For them, the effective value of that $100 benefit was zero.

That got me thinking: what is the core benefit of the basic dues, for all members? It's hard to make an argument for worth, when it is subject to debate on the basis of 6000 individual value systems and career patterns.

Perhaps the best point to be made then, is that the core benefit of the basic dues we all pay in equal measure is that Equity simply exists.

When you need some information regarding an engager or contract, there is someone to pick up the phone and provide the answer. And there is a phone, for that matter, that is connected and can be picked up. When you do get a gig, you don't have to draft your own contract; there is one already written for you, and the engager has already agreed to it. When it comes time to negotiate a fee, you or your agent don't have to start from scratch; you can start from a living wage commensurate with the means of the theatre, and negotiate up from there. And so on.

Perhaps, then, this a better answer to the member's question than providing a laundry list: Equity's existence is what the basic dues pay for. Without your basic dues there would be no Equity, and without Equity, there would be no one to provide the benefits and protections you do use, whichever ones they may be.

Please support the dues proposal, so that you can continue to have access to whatever it is that you personally value.