Cruise ship dancers win union support: Marianne Macdonald reports on the artistes made to work 16 hours a day

EQUITY, the actors' union, has moved to improve conditions for cruise ship dancers who are often expected to work 16-hour days entertaining passengers in addition to twice-nightly shows.

Many are teenagers hired straight from dance college who arrive on board to find they are also required to perform endless unrelated tasks, including encouraging passengers to buy drinks at cocktail parties, calling bingo, giving exercise classes, accompanying passengers on shore and entertaining children.

The problem comes when contracts say dancers must also do an unspecified number of 'cruise staff duties'. Dancers can end up working from 7am to 1am six days a week to fulfil their obligations. They may be given shared cabins in the depths of the ship and forced to fend off drunken passengers who have seen them half-naked on stage.

The abuse of professionals who have undergone a rigorous training only to spend most of their time on unrelated duties has gone unchecked partly because there has been no union-approved standard contract for them.

Equity, which represents up to 1,000 cruise ship dancers, has until now limited its work to negotiating with cruise companies which submit contracts for approval. But the union cannot force changes to clauses which refuse the fare home when a dancer is sacked, impose fines when they are late for rehearsal or offer rates of pay below the union minimum of pounds 165 a week.

Equity is to remedy this early next year when a standard contract is due to be approved by the Variety and Allied Entertainment Council. This will allow dancers more scope to lay down precise hours and duties.

Michelle Blaydon, 25, of Richmond, south-west London, danced for two years on cruise ships and has unhappy memories of the experience.

'When I arrived I was expecting to do extra duties but the extent was far greater than I imagined. We had to stand in the gangway to welcome the passengers on board, attend all the cocktail parties and do library duty four times a week,' she said.

'One day a week we had to stay on board ship all day in case a visitor came to look round the ship or a passenger wanted something as trivial as some ping pong balls and bats.

'My main bone of contention was our hours. We did two shows an evening, one at 8.30pm and one at 10pm, and we were sometimes expected to get up at 7am. We didn't finish putting everything away after the show until 11pm and sometimes we were then expected to socialise.'

Gavin Lee, 22, of Walthamstow, east London, dances in the West End show Crazy For You. He believes a standard contract is long overdue.

'I have come across lots of cruise ship dancers who were like redcoats at Butlins. They would have to call bingo and get up at 7am to organise the passengers on to tours and oversee deck games like shuffleboard and clay pigeon shooting.'

'The worst cases are on cheaper ships where the clientele is less classy. Passengers often get very drunk. Sometimes they hassle the dancers . . . For many it's their first job and they just have no idea what to expect.'