(Received anonymously by email).
I decided to write a blog post after a tweet by Lyn Gardner. I’ve been reading the blog since it started and broadly support what has been said. One of the problems is that the issues covered are widespread and varied and the blog has opened up a number of nasty wounds. The recent loss of jobs and redundancies have caused outrage but the root causes run much deeper and reflect a need for systemic change within the company.
I decided to write a blog post after a tweet by Lyn Gardner. I’ve been reading the blog since it started and broadly support what has been said. One of the problems is that the issues covered are widespread and varied and the blog has opened up a number of nasty wounds. The recent loss of jobs and redundancies have caused outrage but the root causes run much deeper and reflect a need for systemic change within the company.
Lyn Gardner said it perfectly and succinctly with only 140
characters at her disposal when she wrote “Situation with @YoungVicUshers seems to be less about what's been
done as how it's been done which often reflects culture of a building”. I will
aim for similar brevity in this post, although I feel I am doomed to failure.
First of all
I’d like to say that each day there are members of staff heading into the Young
Vic who are doing an amazing job. I think it’s fair to highlight the Taking
Part team who engage new audiences, work with hard to reach groups and do
everything in their power to uphold the heart of what we think the Young Vic to
be. I don’t want the fact that upper
management have treated their lowest paid workers badly to take away from that,
even though I am all too aware of the contradictions it brings.
As Lyn
Gardner said the issues are not what has been done but how. Members of staff
lost their jobs with no consultation and with no option of union support until
the damage was done. The statement from the Young Vic offered little in the way
of understanding the real issues and was more a limp explanation of what
happened. Understandably they said they cannot comment on individual cases
posted anonymously on a blog – I think we can all see why that is the case.
However, saying that misses the point. They do not need to comment on anonymous
grievances, rather they need to acknowledge that they are steering a ship with
lots of unhappy passengers. They need to
come out publicly and say, we are sorry for the way in which we handled the job
losses, we really screwed up, we screwed up big time.
After that
they need to take a long hard look at what has gone so badly wrong, and they
need to take responsibility for it. Why is it, that a couple of years ago their
lowest ranking workers loved the building, loved the theatre, loved the ethos.
And why is it that now they feel undervalued, not respected, and most
importantly of all not listened to. The Young Vic doesn’t need to respond to
individual grievances to do that, they just need to be open to the fact, that
that is the reality for many of their staff and then address it.
I worked at
the Young Vic for a long time, however I left a couple of months ago before the
job losses took place. I was aware of what an unhappy place it was. When I was
there, I was vocal and cried out for change whenever I could. Sometimes I think
management relished my passion, other times I think they just wanted me to shut
up and go away, but crucially whatever problems I highlighted were never acted
upon. This not only made day to day working harder because things that were
broken never got fixed, it also made me feel less and less valued. I was powerless.
It was much easier to ignore staff and let them suffer, than to listen and make
changes.
There have
been a few comments bandied about that suggest David Lan has been protected by
senior management as to what is happening in the organisation. I am not
convinced this is true. I think David is aware but through no fault of his own,
his perspective is skewed. The problems arise in the chain of command. The
information he receives is refracted through the prism of the managers he
speaks to. So when a problem occurs at the bottom, it is not the people at the
bottom reporting to David, it is the managers of the people at the bottom.
Those managers will not say “I’m just letting you know my staff think I am
managing them badly”. The consequence of this is that the issue gets warped. I
think it is this that gets in the way of what is really going on.
In an article printed in the stage he is
quoted as saying “If the people who are running our box office are part
of our in-house teams and consequently come to our meetings and are better
informed about our shows and what we are trying to achieve, they will be fully
integrated into the life of the theatre.” This partly illustrates my point. It
would appear he has been given the impression that change is needed as the
front of house are not integrated enough. This would be better solved by asking
the staff to come to meetings and involving them in conversations about the
life of the theatre, not excluding or refusing to hear
them. On numerous occasions staff asked
for meetings, and asked for involvement, but were told it’s too difficult to
get everyone together. It seems that staff have lost their jobs because they
aren’t integrated enough, which is a missed opportunity because integration is
just what they have been asking for.
Since the
treatment of staff has been made public I have received numerous emails and
text messages from past staff members. Not front of house staff members, but
staff working in many departments at all levels of seniority. They have all
told me HR horror stories of the way redundancies and maternity cover have been
handled. Obviously I can’t and won’t comment on others experience except to
say, that these people aren’t bitter at losing their jobs (although they were
obviously upset and angry at the time) every single one of them was just
saddened, by the way they were treated. I mention this to reinforce the depth
of the problem.
I hope with
all my heart that the Young Vic can turn it around. Admittedly there is little
they can do for the people who have lost their jobs. Even if they did a huge
u-turn and changed their mind on everything it is too late, people are too
winded, angry and upset. They have seen what value the Young Vic puts on their
heads. But maybe, just maybe the Young Vic can put something in place to show
those that work for them that they do care, that they are important, that they
will be heard. They can of course only do this, if they mean it.
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As always we are incredibly grateful for people coming forward with stories, opinions, and issues like this one.