Posts tagged Mass MoCA
After walkout over wage dispute Friday, union workers at MASS MoCA say strike is possible
December 19, 2023 // On Friday, union workers at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts held a walkout calling for higher wages amid ongoing contract negotiations with the museum. Employees voted to unionize with UAW Local 2110 more than two years ago over complaints about working conditions, compensation, benefits, and more. While the union hammered out its first contract with MASS MoCA last December, the three-year agreement didn’t finalize a plan for wage increases for workers — leading to new rounds of negotiations this fall. Reached for comment by WAMC, the museum said that “we continue to carry forward both a spirit of optimism, and our commitment to bargaining as a mutual responsibility,” and that “MASS MoCA looks forward to continued negotiations, to maintain, in good faith, the commitment of elevating our employees while sustaining MASS MoCA’s community and culture through our mission and work together.” Local 2110 representative Chelsea Farrell tells WAMC that a strike isn’t off the table as talks continue.
Changing institutional culture from the inside out: why more and more US museum workers are forming unions
May 19, 2023 // Organising efforts at Storm King, the PMA, the Hispanic Society and elsewhere reflect a trend that has been growing in the US art and heritage sector over the course of the past five years and accelerated with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Workers at more than 20 institutions have formed a union since 2020 or are actively in negotiations for their first contract, including the Jewish Museum and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and Mass Moca in Massachusetts. In March, after 16 months of negotiations, workers at the Whitney Museum of American Art, who had formed a union in spring 2021, ratified their first contract. State of the unions: why US museum workers are mobilising against their employers Tom Seymour The issues prompting workers to form unions across the country and across a broad range of industry sectors are remarkably consistent: wages, benefits and working conditions. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of wage and salary workers who belonged to a union in 2022 was 14.3 million, a 1.9% increase on 2021.
Workers at Dia Art Foundation Vote to Unionize
September 15, 2022 // More than a hundred staff members are now represented by the Local 2110 UAW across Dia’s many locations, which includes their large museum in Beacon, in New York’s Dutchess county, as well as galleries in Manhattan and Bridgehampton, with outposts in New Mexico and Germany.
Mass MoCA Workers on Strike for Wages, Working Conditions
August 25, 2022 // The employees are picketing outside the museum premises until 6 p.m., when it closes. They seek a minimum contract of $18 per hour for the first year of their contract and pay raises in 2023 and 2024. "We are striking today in our fight for a fair contract," said Maro Elliot, a member of the union's negotiating committee. "We're fighting for a living wage and fair working conditions. We believe that striking shows our solidarity and our commitment." We're hoping to increase that minimum to $20 an hour in the last year of our contract," Elliot said. "Unfortunately, Mass MoCA's offer right now is at $16 an hour, with no guaranteed annual increases through the life of our contract." Director Of Strategic Communications and Advancement Jenny Wright, benefits, health insurance, retirement, Bright Ideas Brewing,
Workers at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art plan one-day strike
August 22, 2022 // About 100 workers at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) plan to conduct a one-day strike on Friday, August 19. Nearly all workers (96 percent) supported the action in a recent vote, and they plan to picket in front of the museum during visiting hours. The workers are fighting for a living wage in one of the country’s most expensive states. Will Lehman, Kristy Edmunds, Tenneco,
Opinion: How to Unionize the Artworld
August 15, 2022 // The AWC envisioned a more egalitarian artworld. Leading artistic and cultural institutions like MoMA relied on the labour of hundreds of people, from artists to archivists to cloakroom attendants, and the group felt that they should all have a voice in institutional decision-making, including the ability to bargain over pay and working conditions. As well as empowering art workers, the AWC also sought to make art more available to the public. In one creative act of protest, artist Joseph Kosuth designed a lookalike MoMA membership card, emblazoned with the AWC logo, which purported to grant the cardholder free entry. Unfortunately the AWC, like many radical groups of the era, was not long for this world. Members voted to solidify their project by forming an art workers’ union in 1970, but its scope was ill-defined and the effort fizzled.
MFA union ratifies its first contract
June 30, 2022 // The MFA Union represents all non-managerial employees who are not already represented by another collective bargaining agreement, and includes hourly front-of-house staff and part-time educators as well as members of administrative, technical, curatorial and conservation departments. Union leaders said the salary minimums will improve pay equity across departments and raise salaries up to industry standards. Curators and conservators, who are typically paid less than salaried professionals in other departments, will see the biggest gains. “There is room for improvement in museum compensation as an industry, but this is a step in that direction … so hopefully we don’t get so behind industry standards in the future,” said Eve Mayberger, a member of the bargaining committee and an assistant objects conservator at the museum. “It is a huge improvement for many of our unit members.” Matthew Teitelbaum, Maida Rosenstein