Equity is asking West End performers and stage management to vote in an indicative ballot on strike action, intending to move producers closer to a reasonable multi-year settlement on pay, terms, and conditions.
Negotiations for a new agreement covering performers and stage management have been ongoing since December of 2025, and have been constructive to date. Equity is pleased with tentative proposals around improvements to maternity and paternity pay, wigs, hair, and makeup, and other terms.
However, they do not form part of a package which meets the union’s reasonable expectations on pay, holiday, rehearsal working time, injury, and stage management differentials. SOLT (Society of London Theatre) have also declined to offer payments for newly defined roles, like fight and social media captains, or resolve issues around stage management covering other roles.
Our members have waited in line to see their wages rise, and to have a more modern work-life balance in a precarious industry. In the smallest theatres, performers on the minimum earn less than the UK median wage per week, and all artists receive 20% less holiday weeks than most workers. If SOLT is serious about a modern industry, these negotiations must be a meaningful step forward. Producers need to pay up.
Paul W Fleming, Equity general secretary
Around 1,000 performers and stage management currently working across the West End are covered by the collective agreement, and the overwhelming majority are Equity members. Members will take part in an online ballot to indicate their willingness to take strike action on Saturdays and implement an overtime ban. Additionally, members both currently working on a show and those who have worked on the West End in the past three years are being asked whether they back the union’s negotiating position, with almost 3,000 members in total being balloted for their view. Equity is urging members to vote yes on both questions to help move talks forwards.
Equity has not conducted an indicative ballot of this type on the West End since Margaret Thatcher’s restrictions of trades union freedom in the 1980s.
Paul W Fleming, Equity general secretary, said: “Despite a positive and constructive start to negotiations, SOLT have made it clear that they are unwilling to make significant changes to the packages they have proposed. Those packages offer only a small percent above inflation over four years, after a record breaking period for West End revenue.
“We hope a strong message from the workforce backing the core elements of our revised claim will support SOLT negotiators in moving their members to an acceptable settlement. Members and producers alike should be in no doubt that if a strong result in these ballots do not result in serious movement from SOLT, then a summer of disruption awaits.
“SOLT has repeatedly reported record revenue over the last three years, where our members’ pay has barely kept pace with inflation, and minima have not yet returned to their pre-pandemic value. Whilst record revenue will not mean record profit for all producers, it’s clear that when suppliers, some of whom have doubled their costs since the pandemic, refuse to service productions, money is found to pay them.
“Our members have waited in line to see their wages rise, and to have a more modern work-life balance in a precarious industry. In the smallest theatres, performers on the minimum earn less than the UK median wage per week, and all artists receive 20% less holiday weeks than most workers. If SOLT is serious about a modern industry, these negotiations must be a meaningful step forward. Producers need to pay up.”
The ballot is being run online and is an indicative (ie consultative only, not statutory) ballot. It opens on Monday 27 April and will close on Monday 18 May.
