Posts tagged Art Institute of Chicago
Museum of Science and Industry workers’ union votes to authorize strike
September 24, 2025 // The museum employees have been in contract negotiations for more than two years. Workers say 90% of eligible employees voted to strike, if necessary.
Chicago History Museum workers want to join an arts industry unionization wave
February 17, 2025 // Hannah Johnson, who works in member relations at the museum, is on the organizing committee. She said she and others at the Chicago History Museum have been inspired by cultural workers who have recently unionized, both locally and nationally. “We felt that now was a really good time to really seek out that sense of stability and security regarding our jobs, our wages and our benefits, and also request higher degrees of transparency from management,”
Art Institute, School of the Art Institute Workers Ratify Union Contract in a First for a Chicago Cultural Institution
August 17, 2023 // Under the terms of the deal, employees throughout the unit will see pay rise between 12.25% and 16.25%, with a new minimum hourly rate of $18 taking effect in 2025. The four-year contract also keeps health insurance premiums status quo in the coming fiscal year, and creates a labor-management committee aimed at resolving workplace issues and maintaining open lines of communication. In June, workers at the Museum of Science and Industry voted in favor of unionization, according to results from organizers. Museum management has argued some staffers who voted were ineligible to do so, and the National Labor Relations Board has yet to formally certify the results. This past March, Field Museum employees also voted to organize and are preparing to begin the bargaining process. Additionally, employees at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum and the Newberry Library have voted to unionize. Workers at both organizations are currently negotiating their first contracts.
Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum employees vote to unionize
May 30, 2023 // The vote was 31-4 in favor of unionizing in an election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board, AFSCME said. Ballots were mailed in recent weeks and counted Thursday. Two ballots were not counted because of management challenges. The employees will join AFSCME’s Council 31. The bargaining unit will cover 45 workers at the museum’s Lincoln Park location and at a collections facility in Ravenswood. The unit will include full- and part-time employees, according to its filing with the labor board.
Focus organizing drives on workers without college degrees, US unions told
May 8, 2023 // n contrast, unionization hasn’t taken off nearly as rapidly at many blue-collar, lower-paid workplaces. No other Chipotle restaurant has unionized since workers in Lansing, Michigan, voted last August to make theirs the nation’s first unionized Chipotle. Only one Amazon warehouse is unionized in the US, just two Apple stores and four Trader Joe’s. Those companies have mounted fierce anti-union counterattacks to slow and they hope stop the spread. Chris Rosell, the Teamsters’ organizing director, says one reason unionization of blue-collar workers often doesn’t catch fire is that it’s frequently easier for anti-union consultants to scare and deter those workers. “Blue-collar workers often aren’t as educated about this union-busting stuff,” he said. “They could be more susceptible to these kinds of tactics.” Rosell said the Teamsters often run elaborate campaigns that seek to inoculate workers from the pressures and propaganda from anti-union consultants. He said the Teamsters’ president, Sean O’Brien, hopes to double the union’s membership and focus organizing on such area trucking, warehouses and sanitation work. Erica Smiley, executive director of Jobs with Justice, a labor rights group, says it’s often harder to unionize blue-collar workers because they tend to have less economic security than educated workers and have greater fear of what will happen to them if they’re retaliated against, perhaps getting fired, for seeking to unionize.
Notebaert Nature Museum workers urge support for union
March 27, 2023 // Unions typically need to show via signed cards support from a substantial majority of workers before scheduling an election with the National Labor Relations Board. An employer can voluntarily recognize a union, but most want an election that will give them time to make anti-union arguments to the workers. While known for representing government workers, AFSCME also counts more than 10,000 members at museums nationwide.
US unions see unusually promising moment amid wave of victories
March 16, 2022 // Gebre said the nation’s unions should send far more organizers and money to back the union drives at Starbucks and Amazon. “The rest of the labor movement should be willing to lend a hand,” even if they don’t get any of the members, said Gebre, who was recently named Greenpeace’s chief program officer. “That’s what solidarity means.”