Fair Work Campaign

The Scottish Society of Playwrights has campaigned alongside fellow unions to improve pay, protections and working conditions for freelancers across Scotland’s creative sector, and to ensure that playwrights are better supported to build sustainable careers.

Scotland’s creative industries contribute more than £5 billion to the Scottish economy each year. The sector includes more than 15,000 businesses employing over 70,000 people, alongside a substantial freelance workforce and large numbers of students preparing to enter creative professions. Together, creative workers make a vital contribution to Scotland’s national wealth, cultural life and international reputation.

Yet for many working in the sector, the reality is far less secure. The creative industries remain among the most precarious and poorly paid parts of the economy. Average pay in arts, entertainment and recreation has fallen in real terms since 2008, while poor terms and conditions, combined with insecure public funding, risk making a career in the arts increasingly inaccessible. It exposes not only a workforce issue, but a cultural one: if playwrights and other creative workers cannot afford to remain in the profession, Scotland risks losing a wide range of voices, experiences and stories.

This is especially important in a sector where freelance work is so common. Around 31% of those working in the creative industries are self-employed, compared with around 12.4% across the Scottish economy overall. For playwrights, freelance status is the norm rather than the exception, yet work can often come with delayed payment, weak protection of rights, and little leverage when problems arise.

The Campaign

The SSP has been part of a growing cross-union campaign to improve fair work and conditions for freelancers across Scotland’s creative industries.

We collectively called for all organisations in receipt of Creative Scotland funds, and who employ freelancers, to adopt the STUC Fair Work for Freelancers Checklist as best practice. Clear contracts, job security and timely payment’s aren’t ‘nice-to-haves’: they’re essential working conditions.

We asked organisations to back the Checklist to improve working conditions for freelance artists and cultural workers.

To-date, over 30 employers across Scotland’s creative sector — all organisations regularly funded by Creative Scotland — have signed a trade union pledge, the Fair Work for Freelancers checklist, setting out basic minimum measures for what fair work should mean in practice.

The STUC Fair Work for Freelancers Checklist

What the checklist delivers in practice

The checklist gives organisations a clearer baseline for engaging freelancers fairly: from using transparent contracts and prompt payment terms, to offering clearer arrangements on fees, royalties and intellectual property, supporting safer working environments.

It also recognises the role of trade unions in addressing concerns. For freelancers, this means stronger protections, greater clarity, and better conditions in which to sustain a creative career.

The report behind the campaign

The checklist was developed following the publication of the Freelance and Forgotten report, created by the Scottish Trades Union Congress Creative Unions Group, of which the SSP is a member.

This report was produced in response to the Scottish Government’s Fair Work Framework, and is based on findings from a survey of members of the SSP and other creative unions.

The survey found that:

69% of respondents had experienced issues relating to late payment for work
33% had not been paid for freelance work undertaken
57% had rarely or never undertaken freelance work that offered fair royalties and/or intellectual property allocations
83% had seen a real-terms fall in earnings in recent years
53% had experienced, or seen, bullying, harassment or sexual harassment

These findings underline the scale of the challenge facing freelancers across Scotland’s creative sector, including playwrights, whose livelihoods are too often undermined by delayed payment, insecure contracts, weak protections around rights, and unacceptable workplace cultures.

Wider campaigning for fair work in culture

As part of the wider trade union movement, the SSP works to improve conditions across the sector. In 2024, combined trade union campaigning helped secure additional Scottish Government funding, with a commitment to increase annual spending on culture and the arts by £100 million by 2028/29.

That progress matters, but funding alone is not enough unless it translates into better day-to-day conditions for the freelance workers who sustain the sector.

Alongside affiliated unions and organisations, the SSP supports work to strengthen working standards in the creative industries, and to press for the wider adoption of fairer freelance contracts and practices across the sector.

Growing support across the sector

Support for the report’s recommendations is growing. Organisations that have already signed the pledge include An Tobar and Mull Theatre, A Play, A Pie and A Pint, Grid Iron Theatre Company, and Vanishing Point Theatre Company.

MSPs have also proposed motions in favour of the report, and it has been included in the recommendations of the Culture Fair Work Taskforce for the Scottish Government.

Statements

Peter Arnott, Co-Chair of the Scottish Society of Playwrights, said:

“Playwrights have historically been among the better paid, better treated freelancers in the theatre sector. But this is because there are a comparatively small number of us who have been represented in collective bargaining by a trade union, the SSP, for 50 years. This is no guarantee of the future, of course, with uncertainty and commercial timidity infecting our whole industry. The best future we’ve got is in solidarity with our fellow cultural freelancers and in the value our government and people place on our labour.”

Kris Haddow, Co-Chair of the Scottish Society of Playwrights, said:

“Playwrights have a central role in Scotland’s cultural life, but as freelancers, many continue to work in conditions marked by insecurity, late payment, and with poor protection of their rights. The survey of creative workers in Scotland made for stark reading, highlighting serious issues and falling standards. The Fair Work for Freelancers checklist sets out practical minimum standards that can help create a healthier, fairer, and more sustainable sector. We welcome its endorsement by a growing number of multi-year funded organisations.

The Scottish Society of Playwrights supports the development and implementation of Fair Work policy, and will continue pressing for meaningful change for all freelance creative workers.”

Marlene Curran, National Official for Equity, added:

“Insecurity, low pay, bullying and harassment are driving creatives out of the sector. This threatens to leave a cultural void at a time when Scotland needs its creative voices most. This checklist offers a framework to ensure security, opportunity and respect for freelance workers.”

A collective call for fairer freelance work

Alongside the SSP, the STUC unions behind the Freelance and Forgotten report include Equity, BECTU, Musicians’ Union, Scottish Artists Union, Society of Authors, Writers’ Guild and the National Union of Journalists. Together, we form the Scottish Creative Unions Group.

The SSP continues to work with fellow unions and sector partners to improve the rights, protections, and working conditions of freelancers in Scotland, and to ensure that fair work is treated not as an aspiration, but as a basic minimum standard across the creative industries.