What fashion needs from a union

Unions can play a particularly important role in standardising the fees and terms offered to freelancers. Small business owners, such as emerging designers or PR firm founders, could also benefit from the union’s access to legal advice. After the Celebrity Stylist Union was first formed last August, it created a guide to good practice, explaining what exactly stylists do, how much it costs to provide their services, and a breakdown of how their rate is calculated. It is also working to build standardised templates for different types of contracts that cover all the minimum standards. Miller expects those in other roles who join Fashion UK to establish similar guidelines.

Fashion UK is also planning to run a survey to find out what members think the minimum rates should be across jobs, as well as rate cards that set guidelines on how much people should be paid based on the level of experience and what the job requires. Down the line, it will offer training courses for stylists on skills such as basic alterations or financial literacy, and the same can be applied to other sectors too.

“We’re trying to set a minimum professional rate. It doesn’t mean that this is the gold standard and you have to take this rate — if you can negotiate a higher rate, go ahead, and if you can’t at least take the minimum and don’t work below that,” says Miller. “What we need to show as a union is that we’re united together, and that if you knock on every single door these are the basic terms and the rate — and if you disagree, you can try every single other door down the street but they’ll tell you no.” Setting clear minimum rates would help to reduce the gender and racial pay gap, adds photographer Michaela Efford.

Implementing these standards across the whole industry will take work. Bectu says engagement with trade bodies lends legitimacy to the union’s efforts. The British Fashion Council (BFC) said it has no plans of officially engaging with Fashion UK at the moment, but CEO Caroline Rush said, “There is a large freelance community that remains underrepresented in the fashion industry, and it is good to see an initiative underway to address this.”

Driving collective change

The question isn’t just what fashion workers need from a union, however, it’s also about what they’ll have to invest to make the union successful, says Miller. “I think people think that if they join a union, all their problems will be solved. Really, our union is a space and framework for people to talk about what their issues are and figure out together how we solve it,” he says.