Posts tagged Brooklyn Museum
Storm King Art Center Recognizes Workers’ Union Following an Overwhelming Vote in Favor of Organizing by Staff
June 30, 2023 // “We are thrilled to welcome the workers of Storm King Art Center into our CSEA family,” CSEA southern region president Anthony M. Adamo said in a statement. “Not only do these workers have the support of their fellow CSEA members in the Hudson Valley and across New York State, they are also part of a strong coalition within our international union AFSCME known as Cultural Workers United, which allows them to connect and collaborate with other cultural workers organizing their workplaces.” Other museums with AFSCME units include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where a wall-to-wall union, formed in 2020, reached a contract agreement in October following a 19-day strike. The nation’s ranks of unionized museums and arts institutions have swelled in recent years, especially since 2020. Storm King workers began organizing last August, following the announcement of a $45 campus revamp, expected to be completed in 2024, the Art Newspaper reported.
Brooklyn Museum Union Pickets VIP Artists Ball as Contract Negotiations Stall
April 28, 2023 // On Wednesday night, as guests of the Brooklyn Museum arrived for the annual, star-studded Artists Ball, members of the museum’s union gathered—once again—along the entryway, to raise their voices in songs and speeches of protest. Many brandished signs (“Solidarity with the Union”) and chanted (“overworked and underpaid” and “Brooklyn is a union town”). In August 2021, some 130 employees of the Brooklyn Museum, including curators, conservators, editors, fundraisers, educators, and members of the visitor services department, voted overwhelmingly to unionize. They affiliated with the Technical, Office, and Professional Union, Local 2110, part of the United Automobile Workers (UAW) union which also represents workers at the Museum of Modern Art, the Bronx Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, among other cultural institutions across the US.
State of the unions: why US museum workers are mobilising against their employers
February 4, 2022 // TA report by the American Alliance of Museums, published in April 2021, found that museums closed to the public for an average of 28 weeks during 2020. More than 75% of those surveyed stated that their income fell by an average of 40% that year, while 56% went through rounds of layoffs and furloughs. Rehiring, in most cases, is off the table. Those who kept their positions have had to pick up the slack.