British equity minimum

Why is British equity minimum so much less than actors equity minimum?

It's also a much smaller and weaker union.

dramamama611 said: "Different country, different standard, different cost of living, & different union for starters.

I was a British Equity member for 15 years. Before the Thatcher reforms* - AEA AGMA SM's post below - it was a comparatively strong union and was hard to get into in that, for most, you had to work for a certain number of weeks on an Equity contract to get full membership. My memory is that it seemed actually somewhat similar to AEA now. The main differences I remember were that it represented all actors - no separate Film/TV or TV Radio unions - and it also represented variety artists.

As for different cost of living, I would say NY and London are similar with London maybe being more expensive! But it should be taken into account that, as Briton has a Universal Single Payer healthcare system, healthcare is free and is covered by taxes.

Having said that, British Equity minimums were always low by comparison to US ones. The links below might be of interest...



For West End rates:

https://www.solt.co.uk/downloads/pdfs/rates/2015-08-20-SOLT-Equity-final-offer-rates-2015-2019.pdf

All others:

http://www.uktheatre.org/ratesofpay/

GBP to USD rate is 1GBP to $1.46. So the top West End minimum for an actor is around $975. If I read the SOLT pdf right...



*In terms of unions, Thatcher turned Briton into something fairly equivalent to an American right-to-work state. I think.

NotTheComfyChair, the comparison to the "Right to Work" states here in the US seems like a very good one, from what I know of some of the Thatcher changes.