Tool 1 (asymmetry awareness)

• Questions (categories)

• Manual (how & why & for whom -> how can it be applied)

• Name (option: we need to talk about money)

• Form of result (what do you do with the outcome of tool 1)

Categories of questions:

• Healthcare If you can access all spaces without support, take a step forward. If you are dealing with chronic or long-term sickness, take a step back. If you are in good health condition, take a step forward. If you are able to work full-time, take a step forward. If you have high costs due to medical or therapeutical needs, take a step back. If you need support to move from one place to another, take a step forward.

• Carework / reproductive work (children, sick people, old people) If you are financially support children, take a step back. If you are a single parent, take a step back. If the expanses to take care of your family don’t worry you, take a step forward. If you are the care-taker of someone, take a step back. If you are sending money to family or friends abroad or in this country, take a step back. If you do a lot of underpaid or unrecognized labour, take a step back. If you are financially in charge mostly for yourself, take a step forward.

• Job precarity / situation If you spend a lot of time in trying to figure out what’s the best legal way of being paid is in order to survive, take a step back. If you work in not sufficient flexibel work situations, take a step backward. If it is easy for your to find a job when you need it, take a step forward. If it is likely you get employed, if you need a job, take a step forward. If you can allow yourself to say no to a job opportunity, take a stepforward.

  • contract type If you work within the contractual framework, take a step forward? If you have to accept volunteerscontracts or work within the RPI (KVR) framework to have enought money at the end of the month, take a step back? If you have a fulltime-employment take a step forward. If you have the right to paid holidays, take a step forward.

  • pay (amount) If you can afford to say no to an underpaid job, take a step forward? If you can afford to pay your rent, take a step forward.

  • network If you have a project in mind and are you likely to get support for it, take a step forward. If you are able to sell your work, take a step forward. If you are able to show or present your work, take a step forward. If you need an emergency job for financial reasons and you know someone who can provide it, take a step forward.

  • legal / taxes If you have to trick legal ways of payment in Belgium in order to survive, take a step back. If you have the artiste statute, take a step forward. If you have access to social security take a step forward. If you’re legal status (disability…) prevents you from contractual work or social security like the artiste status, take a step back? If you are worried to have enough days together to keep your artiste status, take a step back?

  • retirement If you have access to governemental pension, take a step forward? If you have private pension savings, take a step forward? If you are worried about poverty when you’re old, take a step back. If inheritance will help you to cover costs for old age, take a step forward. If you can you save money regularly for your pension, take a step forward.

• socio-economic / cultural background (past) or present ? If you were raised in financial scarcity, take a step back Do you have a migration background? Do you have a migration background from a country that is facing discrimination in this country? Are you a woman? If you feel comfortable walking home alone at night, take one step forward. If you are able to move through the world without fear of sexual assault, take one step forward. If you can imagine being afraid of being discriminated at a job interview because you are pregant and it is starting to show, take a step back. If you have been harrassed in the street, take a step back. Are you a Person of colour? If you fear being discriminated at a job because of your skin color, take a step back. Are you facing discrimination because of your gender identity? If you get misgendered regularly, stake a step back. If there were more than 50 books in your house growing up, take one step forward.

• support network (now) If you can’t pay your rent, Can you fall back on family in case you can’t pay your rent? Can you fall back on your chosen family or friends in case you can’t pay your bills?

• If you came from a supportive family environment take one step forward. If you feel confident that your parents and/or friend would be able to financially help/support you if you were going through a financial hardship, take one step forward.

• mental health If you work full time and feel it doesn’t impact your health (physical and mental), take a step forward. If you can afford therapy, take a step forward? If you can’t afford to pay for therapy at a rythm that matches your needs, take a step back. If you have a support system (health care and network) which would allow you to have a burn out, take a step forward.

• If you have ever been diagnosed as having a physical or mental illness/disability, take one step back.

• If you or your parents have ever gone through a divorce, take one step back. If you have ever been bullied or made fun of based on something that you can’t change, take one step back.

• legal status (in comparison to other countries) If you have a legal status in this country, take a step forward? If you can’t legally work in this country, take a step back. If the primary language spoken in your household growing up was not French or Dutch, take one step back. If you need to think of getting VISAs to travel, take a step back.

• If you were born in “the west”, take one step forward. If your education status is not recognised in this country, take a step back.

• capital / heritage / savings If you are going to inherit money, take a step forward? If you are going to inherit property take a step forward? If you own property, take a step forward? If the inheritance you’ll receive, will most likely cover for you when you are old, take a step forward. If you own (property), take a step forward? If you have savings that can help you through a crisis of a year, take a step forward. If you have savings that would allow you to pay for a brand new car take a step forward.

• debts If you need to pay back a student loan, take a step back. If you have debts you cannot pause, take a step back.

• financial situation (I think these are more ‘current situation questions) Are you paying your rent? If you took out loans for your education take one step backward. If you live in a collocation to be able to pay for your rent, take a step back.

• class If you have ever tried to change your speech or mannerisms to gain credibility, take one step back. If you were embarrassed about your clothes or house while growing up, take one step back. If you felt like you had adequate access to healthy food growing up, take one step forward If you had a job during university years, take one step back. If you have ever traveled outside the country you were born in, take one step forward. If your parents or guardians attended university, take one step forward. If you don’t get time off for your religious holidays, take one step back. If you ever went on a family vacation, take one step forward.

• If you can buy new clothes or go out to dinner when you want to, take one step forward.

• race If you can go anywhere in the country, and easily find the kinds of hair products you need and/or cosmetics that match your skin color, take one step forward. If you can make mistakes and not have people attribute your behavior to flaws in your racial/gender group, take one step forward. If you would never think twice about calling the police when trouble occurs, take one step forward. If you have ever been the only person of your race/gender/socio-economic status/ sexual orientation in a classroom or workplace setting, please take one step back. If you have ever felt like there was NOT adequate or accurate representation of your racial group, sexual orientation group, gender group, and/or disability group in the media, take one step back.

  • people you have to pay for If you need to pay for a family member’s or a friend’s medical needs, take a step back. If you need to pay rent for a family member / friend, take a step back. If you have a flatmate and you can afford to pay the full rent if they default, take a step forward.

• mental load If you need a lot of time to think about buying more expensive items even though you can afford them, take a step back. If you lower the temperature in your house due to energy costs, take a step back. If you are afraid to open envelops that look like bills, take a step back. If you are comfortable with discussing money or payment issues, take a step forward. If you have to search for days to find the cheapest train tickets or other ways of transportation, take a step back If you are ready to take a train earlier than 8am to get a cheaper ticket, take a step back. If your computer and/or phone breaks and can you afford to replace it immediately, take a step forward.

-age, race, gender, class

2. step tech (how to make it visually and sharable -> suggesting a divisision on how to divide the money

Tool 2: protocol: score for conversation

To put earn what you need in practice

Guidelines

Working group B

(developing a tool kit for solidarity initiatives)

6^th^ of September, members: Laura, Justine, Camille, Leonore

how do we define priorities on the aims?\ mapping, collecting can come afterwards

For Camille the most important thing on the list would be fair practice

To go in depth with that

To have a shift of perspective

What is fair practice as an open question

Not as a legal approach

Especially counting in asymmetries

So it’s a talk about needs

The aim is to create two tools:

1. to evaluate your relationship to money and your situation of needs

That questions class, questions of inheritance, needs

How to articulate a tool that can show the asymmetry of needs, but also with the value that the rich live with less money and the poor with more

So to balance out that imbalance

Laying the ground for this other tool,

1. namely wat is fair pay by take what you need

As opposed to: everybody is well paid but everybody gets the same

With the focus on the arts

It would be great if the tool could be applied in art projects

I wanted to create a questionnaire for the almanac

How to pay fair?

Fairness, needs, assymetries

Fair pay as a way of paying what you need, instead of everybody earns the same

Kindred practices

Interconnected practices

Entangled needs

assymetrical needs

I would like to find a word for levelling of richness and poorness

Anarchism? So that it is self-organised?

Interim conclusion: we are not going to solve the problem of the political state today.

how are my needs entangled in the class system?

Or the existing economic system?

How would you figure out what are my needs? What are legitimate needs and what are not?

one way to start looking into that is health care.

For example: trans health care, in France, you have to pay for a lot of that yourself.

This was before I was an independent worker.

Stuff that is considered quality of life / cosmetic, even though for the person it is actually very important. It is even more clear if you look at people with disabilities. Needs are not met because of systemic injustices.

It’s not a matter of convenience, but it’s a matter of survival.

what are the extra costs that are not cared for by the states?

If this tool was a questionnaire.

let’s start from the perspectives we have.

Different needs/perspectives.

We like the idea of working on assymetries on income.

I think in the arts, it gives the feeling everybody is precarious in the arts, but this is not per se true. Maybe it is a way to tap in the question: what are my privileges? That I don’t know about? Maybe not use that language, find another word?

breaking the taboo can also be to create a language to neutralize it in a way, we are all part of the same system. Carework for example creates richness.

I would include in this tool some things we did in the commonopoly game. Who contributes to what? If I spend 25 on leasure and somebody else spends 500, how do we deal with this? Coming at it at a lot of different angles, can reveal interesting things.

job precariousness?

how do you make money? What kind of contracts? Fixed salary or not? What kind of environment do they exist in?

I also mean: if you are asked for a project, are you likely to get support? In what way? It’s a network question. To get an awareness. Because this is something that also gives you stability in a way.

it is under the umbrella of precarity. What are the differences in fixed contracts? Minimum wage or above that?

How do you work through the system? How do you find ways to trick the legal system if your precarious situation forces you to do so?

it’s about the mental load.

with this kind of questions, people can get aware of this. For example: Do you have to spend 5 days on finding the cheapest tickets? Do you always have to take the very earliest train?

how do we involve socio-economic background? If you are born social middle class, you have the opportunity to study more stuff and spend time learning about obscure things; networking. What you probably wouldn’t have if you have to work every day. Are you paying your rent? Are you being supported somehow?

there are also scales of measuring priviliges. Like did you grow up in a house / apartment? Did you have to have a student job or not?

maybe we can put some questions in about how comfortable one is with money? Do you think you deserve to be paid well? Did you grow up in scarcity with money?

a follow-up question could be: what is your status now? You can be grown up in middle class, but maybe you grew up in a toxic environment and you don’t benefit from it anymore, because you could have lost your support network.

what is your relationship to money now? Does it cost you anxiety? How do you respond when you have nothing left in your bank account? A question about retirement / inheritance?

can you afford to burn out?

what work do you do for free? (with an explanation of what we understand of ‘work’)

caring for others is work and it is not recognized, so that is quite an important one.

to establish this, we might need to do more research. What form / aim / where would we like to arrive with this?

online could be fun. If we use it for the almanac, I would like a form online, open source?

what happens after you filled in the questionnaire? Do you arrive in a category?

I think it should kind of give you a score. Just give it to you, and then you do what you want with it.

I imagine this tool for this other tool, the being paid what you need. So that this feedback would allow you to help with distributing budget. It helps have a discussion on who needs what in terms of income.

I would try to avoid to have it too categorical. ‘If you answer most question with yes, it could mean that…’ ‘the more no’s you have, the more precarity you are likely to have in your life’. The other tool can still be a discussion tool.

it sounds like it gives an idea. The power of the tool of a questionnaire is to give you more insight in the things you could otherwise ignore; you can look into the reality of things and start from there.

it can make the blind spots visible. There can not only be a tool. It needs also time and discussion.

the idea is to have it as a start to talk about what you need. Not as a strict category.

we could think of a scale. There is something interesting in relation to someone else (not speaking about the online version). There needs to be some kind of form of ‘comparison’.

different ways to show the calculation: a score, a visualization. ‘Here is the score you can start a conversation from’. The data should be anonymous. You cannot just store information about people with a name and intimate stuff. We have to think about this.

if you work analogally, for example a silly poster, to visualize the assymetries. It can be used for a project, an organization?

if you have a set budget, you could customize it? You could set up in advance a system with this.

‘you can ask for this within the situation you are in’

it’s about finding the right language.

even on paper / online I would leave space for questions we might have forgotten / for people to add questions

could this questionnaire be applicable in a non-profit organization? Or in a situation with fixed salaries?

we start at situating it with the art worker who works with short contracts, the institutions are a different subject.

you could use it yourself to have a reference, but otherwise, if you want something concrete to talk about, what pay you should ask for, it should come from the organizers. So we should also be advocating for using this tool.

Let’s keep it short term: for this project what do you need?

if one wants to implement fairer pay, or more assymetric pay, the discussion of this needs to be paid. Otherwise it is a lot of voluntary work you ask for this.

I think this comes from the underlied shared believe about closing the gap between the poor and the rich. What particular ideology is this serving? Redistributing the wealth according to needs? Not based on meritocracy.

Feedback:

It can be a tool for yourself, but can also be used in a group (because it’s interesting in relation to others, but it also about raising awareness of your own situation)

When is it used?

Why would I just use it for myself? Out of curiosity? Like you want to get to know your own footprint?

The questions I can imagine, I am more curious about when it would be needed to be useful and implemented? Would it be needed to get promoted? How do you communicate it, make it useful?

As well online as in the Almanak.

Distribution via Almanak.

Use all the allies that are linked to this.

Take what you need can be useful to be exported to other projects, but then with a protocol.

To get parameters to understand how to evaluate what you need, in the context of a specific condition. Giving clarity from the beginning (by the organizers).

It could be transported to other contexts.

It can be an interesting answer to precarious projects (where there is not enough money to pay everyone the same price)

It can also be used among groups of friends

We want to make a game out of this?

‘We need to talk about money’

a tool that believes in equalizing resources / redistributing

or acknowledging the assymetries / acknowledge that we have different needs + capacity

it could be an Excell sheets with numbers inside / sharable

it can be an echotoop / different versions of the same idea

part 2 (after the break)

it shouldn’t be categorized, like a machine, it’s a tool to have a conversation, always

the tool demands a conversation

it’s possible to simplify for other conversations

if the core of it is about opening up the discussion about money, in an everyday context, not only in worksituations, it should be brought up beforehand

in this protocol for conversation, it should be held beforehand (not afterwards, after, for example, the consumerism)

the conversation, this way, can be more at ease

stappenplan / timeline:

what kind of money needs to be involved in order to be able to pay the workers?

Workload:

1/2 day of work individually

½ day of work shared

• Create a pad on almanac -> public with group

needed budget for this first step: €1000

to be divided by the principles of the tool that we made