THE failure of working-class people to fully participate in cultural activity is, says Gerry Murphy, down to “a lack of opportunity and access.

“We have yet, despite some valiant efforts, failed to fully employ the many forms of expression culture encompasses as a vehicle for change,” he tells me.

It’s a failure evident in the under-representation of the working class as contributors, instigators of and consumers of culture. And it’s obvious also in the subjects populating the cultural landscape and the mediums in which they are expressed.

The reasons underpinning this failure are complex, says Murphy: “It’s not simply because the middle and upper classes are better educated and possessed of incomes that permit them to indulge their cultural pretensions and it’s not because the working class do not appreciate beauty or are devoid of imagination and talent.”

The opportunity for working-class participation arises “when circumstances allow for some of the time and energy otherwise expended on survival to be employed to communicate and share our experience and interpretation of the world around us.”

Access is about overcoming the gatekeepers to facilitate participation, creation and consumption of culture on the part of working people. The stranglehold of the middle and upper classes culturally has permitted them a filter on all aspects of cultural life.

“If we are to be successful in broadening opportunity and facilitating greater access for the working class into society’s cultural life, we have to create the conditions whereby working people have the time and the energy to express themselves,” Murphy says.

That can only come about when the economic system is reshaped to bring about the necessary redistributions of power and wealth to facilitate this, he stresses.

“While that broader struggle continues it is important and vital that the working-class experience of the world is recorded, transmitted and enjoyed by a broader audience.

“And for that to happen working people need to seize on the possibilities of technology and challenge the established cultural gatekeepers.”

Unions play a central role in the economic struggle to improve terms and conditions of working people and play an important role in the political struggle to bring progressive values of democracy, equality and justice into social life and Murphy is clear that they need to “come up with a plan to persuade the gatekeepers in government and the creative industries to change their approaches and open culture and its opportunities to all.”

The whole notion of culture as a site of struggle that can effect positive change for working people needs to be addressed urgently by the trade union movement because, he asserts, “culture represents an opportunity to present an alternative narrative, build relationships and persuade people.”

He stresses again that accessibility and opportunity are problems that need to be tackled and there are past examples to draw on, such as miners’ libraries in  Wales and the socialist Sunday schools of the mid-19th and early-20th centuries.

Today, unions run extensive education programmes which could be broadened to include cultural education.

Organising the existing workforce in the cultural industries has to be a priority given these areas of work are riven with bogus self-employment and zero-hours contracts — devices already targeted by the entire trade union movement.

“Extending the battle aggressively into the cultural sphere can only assist in bringing about their end. It would also attract more workers into trade union membership given the inherent financial vulnerabilities of so much cultural activity,” Murphy says.

Trade unions also possess the capacity to assist cultural workers and local communities to access the existing limited arts funding available from the government and charitable avenues.

“Lessons learned by trade unions when taking industrial action are also a ready source of help,” Murphy stresses.

“The power of the consumer could be better organised and mobilised and no-one is better suited to this type of activity than trade unionists.

“Such activism has both the power to demand change but to also shift the cultural landscape to one more equally reflective of the experiences of everyone who shares the planet.”

He sees the post-pandemic period as an opportunity to restart cultural activity in a more inclusive and equitable fashion.

“To do so would go some way to acknowledge the sacrifice made by the many essential front-line workers, the majority of whom are amongst the lowest paid in society, who have stood up for everyone regardless of class, race or gender,” he stresses.    

“It really is time we took it back and shared our stories.”

Gerry Murphy is president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. Mike Quille is editor of Culture Matters, culturematters.org.uk.