Posts tagged Philadelphia Museum of Art
Mayor Parker, unwavering in negotiations, dangles holiday pay incentive to end strike
July 6, 2025 // Though typically not part of a union negotiation that often includes wages, paid time off policies and health benefits, the Parker administration is trying to lump in dedicated low interest 30-year home mortgages for DC33 union members as part of their contract deal. The administration is also offering special dedicated access to all the home affordability programs she’s been spearheading.
Penn Libraries staff file petition to unionize with National Labor Relations Board
June 25, 2024 // The letter was signed by Penn Libraries librarians, curators, developers, and other staff and sent to Brigitte Weinsteiger, the H. Carton Rogers III Vice Provost and director of the Penn Libraries, on Friday morning. The letter expressed the signatories’ intent to unionize as Penn Libraries United. According to a press release from PLU, a “supermajority of eligible library staff have signed union representation cards.” Penn Libraries support staff have been unionized since 1969 as the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees District Council 47 Local 590, and the new group aims to join the same local union.
Philly workers got organized in 2023. Look back on this year’s strikes, walkouts, and union campaigns.
December 30, 2023 // As worker organizing activity heated up toward the end of 2022, with new unions and strikes grabbing headlines through the fall, labor leaders predicted 2023 would be an even bigger year for employees seizing on their leverage.
Art museum and workers in dispute over scheduled pay raises
July 7, 2023 // The raises were part of the contract agreement that ended the 2022 strike. “It’s really a punch in the gut for a lot of folks,” said Adam Rizzo, president of the PMA union, an affiliate of AFSCME DC47. The disagreement involves a differing interpretation in contract language about longevity pay increase between the union and their managers, which became clear in a meeting between the parties on Wednesday, according to Rizzo.
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.
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.
Why Workers at Growing Number of Nonprofits Are Unionizing
February 2, 2023 // Nonprofit employees may be more predisposed to unionizing than other workers. They tend to be younger, well educated, and altruistic — a perfect blend of characteristics that tip people toward interest in unions, says David Zonderman, a history professor at North Carolina State University who teaches labor and nonprofit history. Nonprofits come out of a tradition of charity and sacrifice, and most pay their employees less than private companies and government. As a result, many unionizing workers are looking for livable wages and opportunities to advance, all the more important as housing costs and inflation have shot up. Others see unions as a way to press for greater racial equity.
Please Touch Museum workers want to unionize
January 30, 2023 // A vast majority of the 46 proposed members filed paperwork with the National Labor Relations Board on Thursday, expressing their desire to unionize, though organizers declined to give a specific number of participants. The union would include full-time and part-time employees of the museum who are not contractors or managers. Ghorpadey and Stern said workers want the museum to invest in more robust security infrastructure. Safety concerns, largely due to disgruntled museum visitors who made verbal or physical threats, have led some people to quit, they said.
Philadelphia Orchestra’s choir moves to unionize
December 12, 2022 // AGMA has given the Philadelphia Orchestra Association a Monday deadline for granting voluntary union recognition to the group, just as the members prepare to join the orchestra for next week’s performances of Handel’s Messiah. Griff Braun, an AGMA organizer, declined to say exactly how many of the group’s 100-or-so singers had signed union cards, but called it a “very strong majority.”
Strike by Philadelphia Museum of Art workers shows woes of ‘prestige’ jobs
October 10, 2022 // Organizing one workplace can serve as an example for other similar workplaces to do the same. Adam Rizzo, art museum educator and one of the union’s leaders, says when it formed, it also created a new chapter, Local 397, which employees at other museums could join.