The relevance of ideas in a union’s organization of contingent workers: ‘Here come the fairy people!’

There has been little research on the entertainment industry trade union Equity, one of the few longstanding examples of a union that organizes contingent workers as core members. An explanation for this is considered to be the perception of acting as not ‘real’ work. The article argues that this perception has analytical relevance and explores the interconnection of historical, ideological and economic issues in accounting for employment phenomena.