Dampfzentrale Bern

A salary scheme for Swiss cultural institutions

Dampfzentrale Bern has set its sights on initialising a salary scheme for back-office jobs at Swiss cultural institutions.

Cultural institutions in Switzerland are reliant on qualified staff outside of the artistic activities (business management, communication, management assistance, general services, etc.). In order to keep pace with employers outside of the cultural sector, however, there are often too few options for offering competitive pay, attractive promotion prospects, or additional incentives such as contributions towards public transport tickets or above-average social benefits.

A Fair Pay salary scale for jobs in cultural organisations should be employable in daily practice at institutions on the independent scene and serve as a basis for negotiations at cultural policy level. The project broaches the issue of fair pay in the sector, raises awareness, and encourages discussion and an exchange of views, with the «Fair Pay» campaign in Austria serving as a model for this.

A multilingual survey will be used to gather data on pay levels and salary schemes at Swiss cultural institutions and, in consultation with experts, a Fair Pay salary scale will be compiled on this basis.

In a second step, a new salary scheme will be devised for Dampfzentrale Bern based on the Fair Pay salary scale and logged as a use case for other institutions.