December 18, 2004


Sweatshop risk hangs over culture secretary

DOES UK culture secretary Tessa Jowell really want the reputation for being the most successful slave merchant for 200 years?

If she doesn't, the culture secretary needs to act, fast.

The momentum towards independent production companies, begun when Channel 4 went on air 20 years ago, is growing again - but with scant regard for the pay and conditions of those at the bottom of its food chain.

Margins have become so tight that some companies are now believed only to survive by using 'work experience' students.

Some firms, it seems, would quickly go to the wall if forced to pay even the legal minimum wage, raising questions about whether their current viability could put them in breach of current trading legislation.

Mrs Jowell is believed to have a social conscience, but with even the BBC now considering outsourcing more online work to independent producers, the implications for employment have grown even gloomier.

Is there the financial capacity in providing such services for a profit centre? If independent television production is any indication, the answer is clearly no.

The consolidation of the sector, the alleged use of phantom phone numbers and post boxes in the region, and the reluctance of some companies reportedly to bid for low-budget regional programmes shows just how tight the margins, if any, can be.

That independent online production should be any more profitable is unlikely.

Indeed, only by employing those with the least experience - and consequently by running the greatest legal risks should errors occur - would such companies be likely to make any money whatsoever; that is, of course, if the insurance premiums were not too expensive.

Quality - and legal safety - do not come cheaply and the most junior and inexperienced should not be those who pay.

Mrs Jowell has a chance to tell Ofcom that the BBC, ITV plc and all the UK's independent production houses can make one cut too many.

The government of which she is a member came to power on its promise of introducing a legal wage. Now, it looks as if its own policies are undermining yet another pledge.

Broadcasting may have the cachet of glamour that still attracts students willing to bear all the worst excesses of a workplace for none of the rewards. Online work does not.

Taken together these factors seem to have by-passed Mrs Jowell, perhaps conveniently for the advisers around her on whom she so greatly relies, their friends, cronies and future employers.

But then, those with senior government experience entering the food chain higher up seem oblivious to the plight of their prey.

Whether Mrs Jowell's sympathies with them or whether she does believe in slightly greater equity remains to be seen - and only time, and her actions, will tell.