Further to the BBC London News piece last week in which Horace Trubridge (Musicans Union) was interviewed about professional musicians being asked to work for no fee at the Olympics, MGL is demanding answers from LOCOG.
The LOCOG response – published on the BBC – was that they were not aware of any official approaches to professional musicians to ask them to work for free.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-18652088
This is completely untrue. We understand that The Musicians Union has been sending LOCOG example after example of exactly that – professional musicians being asked to play Olympic gigs for which there is no budget. The MU state on their website that ‘We have the emails to prove it – and they are coming from LOCOG staff’.
Horace Trubridge, MU Assistant General Secretary says:
“LOCOG has repeatedly told us that all professional musicians will be paid, and yet we’ve seen example after example of them breaking their word. If they want musicians to entertain thousands of people then they should pay for it. It is difficult enough to earn a decent living as a professional musician these days – where does this idea come from that musicians should be happy to work for free? Who else would be?”
Unsigned Band Review (UBR), however, has now updated the terms and conditions on its website and is paying bands to take part in the Unsigned Bands competition at the Olympics.
When MGL printed off the terms and conditions of the competition from the UBR website on Friday last week, the only mention of payment was in terms of expenses:
‘Payment for expenses will be discussed on an individual basis.’
Crucially, the terms and conditions have now changed so that they read:
‘Payment for fees and expenses will be discussed on an individual basis.’
MGL was also informed by LOCOG that the competition was not a breach of the agreement, because the bands were going to be ‘amateur musicians.’
Report avaible at www.MusiciansUnion.org.uk