A previous version of this article appeared in Metropolis M (2025/6) in Dutch. For Platform BK a translation was made in a collaboration by Danielle Voorthuis and the authors.

Fair Practice is under strain. On the one hand, Fair Pay is gradually becoming standard practice. Artists and other independent art workers no longer have to make do with whatever leftovers remain from the budget. Supported by policy, they can demand fair payment for their work, since compliance with the code was made mandatory for subsidised art institutions in 2021, and last September, the House of Representatives almost unanimously passed a motion to encourage the sector to enter into a binding covenant for fair payment.[1] On the other hand, there are increasing calls to suspend, or at least relax, the mandatory protocols and payment standards in the arts. Critics find that Fair Pay policies are making cultural productions too expensive. They argue that the new regulations drive the costs of cultural production to unprecedented levels, constrain the number of projects that can be produced, limit space for experimentation, narrow opportunities for emerging artists, and undermine the inclusivity of the art world.

In this text, we take a step back to explore the roots of this criticism in a cultural policy which we wholeheartedly helped create. The persistent problems with implementation and the declining support for the most concrete part of the code, Fair Pay, have shaken our conviction. We ask ourselves: how useful is the concept of Fair Practice now that it is causing so much resistance and confusion? And is there any good alternative?

The Paradigm Shift
To understand how the Dutch Fair Practice policy came about, it is useful to go back to 2014. In that year, the American organisation W.A.G.E. (Working Artists and the Greater Economy) introduced the first calculator for artists’ fees and a W.A.G.E. certification for institutions that adhere to it. Working without a strong regulatory government, art workers in the U.S. developed their own standards for labour relations, and directly incentivised institutions to comply with them. The results have been significant. As of 6 March, 2026, W.A.G.E. reports that nearly 25 million dollars has been paid out to artists through the W.A.G.E. Certification. Inspired by this effective action, members of the Belgian organisation State of the Arts (SOTA) created a European version of the W.A.G.E. model. As early as 2014, they published a white paper on what they called a “fair practice label” – and so the term was born in the Low Countries.

Although fair payment, artists’ fees, and transparent contracts were important components of the initial concept of “fair practice”, SOTA also articulated a broader set of values. In addition to solidarity and social security, it laid down ethical principles such as transparency in financing, guarantees of freedom of expression, ecological awareness, and diversity policies within cultural institutions. In the years that followed, the concept of “fair practice” was adopted by cultural workers throughout Europe. Fair payment was invariably presented as part of a fundamental shift in values, aimed at a socially just and non-exploitative system of cultural production. A good example is the final report of Reshape, a study of fair cultural practices involving organisations from fourteen European countries, which cites “fairness” as necessary for the “paradigm shift” toward a new cultural economy.[2]

The artists, activists, and researchers involved in Reshape drew inspiration from progressive models of governance such as sociocracy and holacracy (horizontal working model within teams), from citizens’ initiatives, from the revival of the “commons” and from good practice examples such as Pirate Care and Common Wallet. It also included experiments with creating an alternative cultural economy here and now, such as the Fairy Purse: a speculative model in which a flexible salary is paid to all participants on the basis of a shared bank account and collective self-evaluation. The aim was not only to enable redistribution, but more importantly to offer participants a shared sense of fairness: fair payment in their own hands. “Paradigm shift” is a lofty term to describe such a low-key prototype, but the Fairy Purse does illustrate well what Fair Practice is all about: a bottom-up pursuit of systemic change, in which fair payment is important, but functions as part of a broader attempt to reform the cultural economy.

Balance in the labour market
In the Netherlands, the term fair practice was first introduced during the Nederlands-Vlaams Theater Festival (Dutch-Flemish Theater Festival) in 2015. Interest group Kunsten ’92 picked up on it and developed the Fair Practice Code, which was presented in 2017 to the then Minister of Education, Culture, and Science (OCW), Jet Bussemaker. At the same time, the Guideline for Artists’ Fees was developed by BKNL, an informal council comprising Platform BK, BBK, BOK, the Kunstenbond, De Zaak Nu, the Dutch Gallery Association, and the Museum Association, among others. These joint, bottom-up efforts soon garnered support from policymakers. In 2016, the Dutch Social and Economic Council (SER) and Cultural Council (RvC) published the report Passie Gewaardeerd (Passion Appreciated), which identified structural problems in the cultural labour market: workers in this field generally struggle with over-flexibilisation, low income levels, lack of sufficient insurance, and low pension accrual. The councils also presented a reform agenda for the labour market, which provided legitimacy for Fair Practice and led to the introduction of policy proposals on a national level.

It is hard to overstate the positive impact of these developments. Before the introduction of the Guideline for Artists’ Fees in 2017, only one-third of museums had a policy on artists’ fees; two years later (well before Fair Pay became mandatory), the balance had shifted. Two-thirds of the institutions now had some form of artist fee policy.[3] In addition, the introduction of Fair Practice helped to break the taboo around money in the arts. Artists were no longer paid what was left over, the dregs – and when they were, they began to speak up, because they started to see their work as fully-fledged labour. The Fair Practice debate also proved to be a perfect catalyst for the organisation of art and cultural workers. In 2018, 22 professional organisations, lobbyists, trade unions, and copyright organisations joined forces in the Creative Coalition, which has now grown to 47 members, representing some 40,000 workers. Fair Practice really was a perfect machine for bottom-up change in the cultural economy.

Yet, from the very beginning, the notion of fair practice carried ambivalence and vulnerability. As we can now see, rereading the policy documents from the early days, the strategy developed by economists and societal stakeholders was predicated on the analysis that the problem of normalised ‘unfair practice’ was caused by imperfections in the cultural labour market and, thus, a repair of the market would be the desired solution. As the authors of Passie Gewaardeerd stated: ‘[The problems in the cultural labour market are] related to the fact that supply and demand do not align efficiently. […] The intrinsic production drive of artists [leads to] oversupply, often resulting in unequal power relations and falling prices.’[4] In other words, there is just too much art and culture, which undermines the price of cultural work. Up to the present day, this analysis is the basis of the Fair Practice policy. Policymakers and representatives pursue market regulation to ensure a good balance between supply and demand, so that fair remuneration is achieved and the labour market position of artists is improved. In short, they conceive of fair practice as a market correction. Yet this very vision is the root of the current tensions surrounding Fair Practice.

Limits to the market
Tensions in the debate surrounding Fair Practice culminated in the spring of 2025, when the new standard amounts of the Guideline for Artists’ Fees were announced. The new guidelines included some unpleasant surprises for the institutions, including larger-than-usual inflation adjustments and a newly introduced sliding scale of minimum artist fees, with gradual increases for institutions with an annual turnover of more than €250,000, €750,000, or €1,500,000, respectively.[5] Panic ensued among museums and art venues, which had to suddenly and quickly overhaul their budgets for the upcoming year. As a result, the consensus on the positive character of Fair Practice took a hit. Before, everyone agreed that work in the arts should be fairly remunerated. But once the standard amounts were increased, and in some cases even exceeded the minimum wage, dissent immediately arose. Representatives of museums and art venues called the trade unions back to the drawing board. Consultants and economists were called in to map out all the interests involved. But in the complex debates on rates, indicators, multipliers, and differentiation models, consensus on the value of art production and fair remuneration disappeared from view altogether.

Whenever incidents like this happen, we are reminded that our governments are willing to nominally promote Fair Practice and institute standards for fair payment, but are unwilling to cover the financial gap resulting from their own policy. In recent years, we have seen that temporary one-off funds are sometimes made available to stimulate Fair Pay, by way of a mitigating “transition budget”, but structural extra budgets for fair practice have never been created in the long-term budgets of the Ministry of Culture. This unwillingness to dedicate structural funds is often understood to be a budgetary decision, whereby the minister or state secretary can claim credit without having to foot the bill. But it also aligns seamlessly with the market logic that has always underpinned the Fair Practice policy as it was developed in policy discussions. The government relishes the idea that new standards and temporary funds can drive professionalisation to the point where the sector can stand on its own two feet and only viable market actors survive. It believes that artificial price floors will lead to lower production volume, with the remaining production offering better working conditions for the makers. Thus, supply will be leveled more adequately to existing demand, leading, almost magically, to a new, healthier cultural labor market equilibrium.

Most likely, by regulating without paying, the government was hoping for a kind of “fair trade effect” to take place in the cultural sector. It is a known fact that consumers are sometimes willing to pay more for a fair product, such as ‘slave-free chocolate’, or, in our case, ‘exploitation-free culture’. It is, of course, imaginable that this kind of effect could close the financial gap created by Fair Pay standards. Also, with lower production volume, makers and institutions might have more time per production and might, as a result, be able to create higher-quality, more professional cultural products. And all of this within the existing public budgets. However, inevitably, the market rebalancing framework leads to a different, more uncomfortable discussion. If the effects of professionalisation and fair trade are insufficient and supply remains higher than demand, establishing a healthier market equilibrium ultimately entails limiting supply. In other words, this means reducing the number of professional artists.

These are, in short, the policy dreams from above. How do they impact the practice of institutions and makers? At this point in time, people in the field are mostly noticing that less can be produced for more money, which is perceived as a narrowing of the room for cultural work within the subsidised part of the sector. In the most recent round of subsidies, existing budgets were redistributed, meaning fewer organisations received higher grants.[6] Although there is no hard data yet on the outflow of self-employed workers in the cultural sector, the responsible authorities’ intentions have become clear. During one of the many stakeholder meetings we attended, a representative of Cultuur+Ondernemen (Culture and Entrepreneurship) spoke of a “dignified dying process” for redundant workers.

Perhaps some artists are indeed leaving the field. However, based on roughly a hundred years of experience with autonomous art, it is more likely that artists are reverting to a working method they know all too well: production within an informal economy, in which poorly paid or unpaid labour is exchanged for visibility and networking opportunities.[7] Fair Practice has made much of this invisible labour visible, but is now increasingly being used to draw a new dividing line between paid, “professional” labour and everything outside of that category – work that is deemed insufficiently professional for institutions and therefore need not be compensated. This applies both to a growing group of creators who are excluded from the system and to many of the smaller, more experimental art initiatives. The complexity of this situation is evident at BAK, basis voor actuele kunst (base for contemporary art) in Utrecht: after all subsidies were withdrawn, a self-organising collective continued the organisation under the name Basecamp for Tactical Imaginaries. As a former BIS institution, this inevitably conflicts with Fair Pay standards. Is this an admirable attempt to keep the local sector inclusive and diverse, or an undermining of a healthy market? The question strikes at the core ambiguity of Fair Practice.

Conflicting interpretations
In any case, senior trade union representatives and economists continue to insist on strict compliance with remuneration guidelines. They see these stringent requirements as a necessary antidote to exploitation and believe that the widening budget gap will strengthen workers’ bargaining positions in the long run. After all, the institution cannot function without the labour of the artists and other independent art workers. Moreover, they argue, this will reveal the true costs of cultural production and motivate funders (including the government) to invest in a fair labour market. While these arguments are not without merit, they overlook a fundamental question: what do we actually mean by “fair”, and who decides? Is Fair Practice about fostering a fair market, or about providing protection against market pressures? And who bears responsibility for implementing Fair Pay? The government, the employer, or ‘the field’?

The growing dissatisfaction with Fair Practice reveals two things. Firstly, at some point in the policy-making process, the concept of Fair Practice has been hijacked by a neoliberal interpretation that leaves little of the original grassroots ambitions for alternative governance and a fundamentally different cultural economy. And secondly, that liberal faith in market forces and self-regulation does not hold. Art production – or culture more broadly – cannot be reduced to market logic. Of course, there is a substantial art market in which enormous sums of money circulate, and in which demand from museums, collectors, and other art enthusiasts can drive the value of works of art to great heights. However, the public segment of the cultural sector does not function according to this supply-and-demand logic. Here, other values take precedence: social relevance, artistic development, accessibility, and the right to artistic freedom, even if there is no clear market for it (yet).

What to do?
The concept of Fair Practice has worked well for a long time, but it is now reaching its limits. Its initially ‘soft’ character helped to build broad support, as the different interests of employees, employers, and governments were set aside in favour of a shared ideal of fairness. However, the vague definition of “fairness”, without clear economic justification, made the concept susceptible to different interpretations: as a tool for market correction, as a painful means of transition or as a first step towards an alternative cultural economy. Over time, this allowed the implementation of the concept to be appropriated by neoliberal interpretations.

We believe that interest groups should connect their conclusions to the growing dissatisfaction in the field. As long as Fair Practice continues to be developed without questioning the underlying neoliberal logic of market corrections, the concept risks losing its credibility and further increasing scepticism in the field. At the same time, institutions cannot simply call for abandoning previously agreed standards without offering an alternative. After all, returning to the situation before this Fair Practice process would not be an improvement either. So what should be done? We have two suggestions.

Firstly, let’s be honest about the real core of the problem. We have long been aware of what current arts and cultural production actually costs. Moreover, the so-called budget gap is not as significant as is often presented. Calculations by PPMC Economic Advice (2023) show that fair payment in the performing arts, visual arts, and creative industries together would require an additional 35 million euros per year – or just 0.023% of the national budget.[8] Yet the government refuses to cover this amount on a structural basis. This allows the government to affirm to the public the value of culture, but at the same time they are offloading the financial responsibility of covering these costs onto the “fair” market. So far, unions’ efforts to reveal the real costs of fair cultural production have had little effect. The Fair Pay issue is therefore not a funding problem, but a legitimacy problem: the government does not feel responsible for bearing the consequences of its own Fair Practice policy.

This brings us to the second point. We must continue to emphasise that art and culture are public matters. Cultural policy should protect artists and institutions from the market, rather than allowing them to be absorbed by it. Justin O’Connor shows what such a policy might look like in his excellent book Culture is Not an Industry (2024). He argues for policies that recognise culture as part of the basic infrastructure: with investments in public institutions, fair wages, and allocations of resources via citizen panels – where cultural workers stand shoulder to shoulder with nurses, teachers, and conductors. Anyone who finds this too idealistic need only look to the Netherlands’ southern neighbours for evidence to the contrary. In Belgium, a legal certificate for professional artists was introduced in 2014, giving self-employed artists appropriate access to benefits. (This is, indeed, a contemporary variant of the traditional Dutch BKR.) This certificate is a simple, practical, and principled means of anchoring cultural labour in the basic economy. Achieving something similar in the Netherlands will not be easy, given the harsh right-wing political climate. Nonetheless, it is crucial not to give in to the autocracy of the market. Things can, and must, be done differently.

Serving as co-directors of Platform Beeldende Kunst (Platform BK) from 2020 to 2023, Koen Bartijn and Sepp Eckenhaussen actively participated in the development and implementation of fair practice policy in the Netherlands. Sepp Eckenhaussen represented Platform Beeldende Kunst in Beeldende Kunst Nederland (BKNL) and, in that capacity, participated in negotiations concerning the Artist Fee Guidelines. Koen Bartijn has continued the work and has served on the boards of Platform BK and the Creatieve Coalitie, a sector-wide association of organizations and unions representing art workers. In this capacity, he contributes to the development of sectoral agreements, labor standards, and codes of conduct. In addition, as artistic director of the art initiative VHDG, he is directly responsible for ensuring fair commissioning practices.

[1] Only the MPs of the far-right PVV voted against this motion. See: House of Representatives report on binding Fair Pay agreement, https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/moties/detail?id=2025Z16469&did=2025D38143

[2] Reshape: A Workbook to Reimagine the Art World. Brussels: RESHAPE Network, 2020. https://reshape.network/uploads/prototype_config/document/1/RESHAPE_A_Workbook_to_Reimagine_the_Art_World.pdf

[3] Totta Research & BKNL, ‘Richtlijn Kunstenaarshonorarium: Onderzoeksrapport,’ BKNL, 19 April 2018. https://bknl.nl/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Onderzoeksrapport-richtlijn-Kunstenaarshonorarium.pdf

[4] Sociaal‑Economische Raad (SER) en Raad voor Cultuur. Passie gewaardeerd: Versterking van de arbeidsmarkt in de culturele en creatieve sector. (Passion appreciated: Strengthening the labour market in the cultural and creative sector) Advice 17/07 (April 2017). The Hague: SER / Council for Culture, 31. https://www.ser.nl/-/media/ser/downloads/adviezen/2017/passie-gewaardeerd.pdf

[5] Guideline for Artists’ Fees, ‘Guideline for Artists’ Fees, 2024’. The Hague: BKNL, 2024. https://en.kunstenaarshonorarium.bknl.nl

[6] See: Falke Pisano and Jack Segbars: ‘Het kunstsubsidiesysteem: oude oplopende en niet opgeloste spanningen’ (The arts subsidy system: long-standing and unresolved tensions), Metropolis M, 9 February 2025.

[7] See also: Nous Faes, ‘Onvrije arbeid’ (Unfree labour), Metropolis M, 7 November 2023.

[8] Data for 2022. In other years, the percentage is in the same order of magnitude. See: https://www.kunsten92.nl/rapport-fair-pay-dichterbij-meerkosten-van-fair-pay-in-de-culturele-sector-2022/# and https://www.rijksfinancien.nl/miljoenennota/2023/1468767