Website: https://wageforwork.com/
Artist collective that seeks to regulate the payment of artist fees in the USA non-profit sector. W.A.G.E understands the contemporary fight for non-wage compensation as part of a wider struggle by all gig workers who supply content without payment standards or an effective means to organise. In the context of contemporary art, where the unpaid labor of artists supports a more than $60 billion-dollar industry, W.A.G.E.’s mission is to establish sustainable economic relationships between artists and the institutions that contract artist labour, and to introduce mechanisms for self-regulation into the art field that collectively bring about a more equitable distribution of its economy. W.A.G.E. operates three connected programs:
- W.A.G.E. Certification, a register of non-profit arts institutions that pay artist fees meeting their minimum payment standards,
- WAGENCY, a solidarity union for artists, art workers, and others in the art system to their leverage, and a platform for transacting artists’ labour,
- CONTRACTS, a set of legal tools for non-unionised arts freelance workers.
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