Unionized workers on the Massachusetts Museum of Modern Artwork (MASS MoCA) voted by a 96% margin to go on strike this Friday, August 19. They plan to picket exterior a museum entrance from 8am to 6pm that day and urge guests to assist their battle for a primary contract.
MASS MoCA’s union, which fashioned in April 2021 with United Auto Workers (UAW) Native 2110, has been bargaining with museum management for round a yr and is dismayed that its first contract stays elusive. The union seeks a minimal wage of $18 per hour within the contract’s first yr, with regular annual will increase that will carry that baseline to roughly $20 per hour by the top of 2024. The museum’s counterproposal is a minimal wage of $16 per hour, with no wage assurances for 2023 and 2024, in accordance to the union. Presently, the typical wage throughout the bargaining unit is $17.30 per hour, with two-thirds of staff making lower than $15.50 per hour.
“Workers voted overwhelmingly to go on strike because the museum’s offer, particularly for the lowest paid workers, is simply unfair,” Maida Rosenstein, president of UAW Native 2110, mentioned in an interview with Hyperallergic. “It’s a very lowball offer, and there are no guaranteed increases over the life of the contract.”
The Economic Policy Institute’s family budget calculator estimates {that a} single particular person with no youngsters dwelling in Berkshire County in Massachusetts would want to make over $40,000 per yr to obtain a “modest yet adequate standard of living.” The museum’s standing provide equates to a minimal annual wage of round $33,000.
“We have asked our members to strike because MASS MoCA has not bargained in good faith on a fair contract for the employees who make it so successful,” Maro Elliott, the museum’s supervisor of institutional giving, mentioned in a press release, including that an settlement would “create a more accessible, equitable, and just workplace.”
Elliott characterised MASS MoCA’s tone towards the union as “antagonistic” and mentioned that representatives advised members of the bargaining committee that “arts and artists come first.”
“We all love MASS MoCA but we also have to live,” Elliott added.
Simply months in the past, the museum settled a cost filed by the union for failing to grant an everyday annual improve to unionized workers. As a part of the settlement, the museum retroactively paid out will increase to workers. Native 2110 has moreover filed unfair labor follow expenses with the Nationwide Labor Relations Board for MASS MoCA’s “bad faith bargaining” and for a promise it made to give raises to particular person workers on the situation that they efficiently persuade the union to again down on its calls for.
Rosenstein echoed Elliott’s complaints about museum management’s negotiation ways, calling them “coercive.” She mentioned that upon studying in regards to the impending strike, museum leaders despatched an “extremely nasty” electronic mail to bargaining committee members encouraging staff to cross the picket line. (When Hyperallergic reached out to MASS MoCA about this electronic mail, Jenny Wright, MASS MoCA’s director of strategic communications and development, represented the e-mail as “an FAQ informing employees of their legal right to strike or not strike.”) The place that management was taking, Rosenstein opined, was “more reminiscent of Amazon or Walmart than a museum.”
“While we respect our employees’ right to strike as a means of expressing their views, we are also disappointed in their decision, given the positive and collaborative environment that we have worked to foster during our collective bargaining process with the UAW,” Wright mentioned. Wright furthered that management had made “significant progress towards reaching a contract” and was trying ahead “to getting back to the bargaining table to continue our negotiations.”
MASS MoCA plans to stay open on Friday, with administration and management filling key front-of-the-house posts.
“Many of us live locally in North Adams. By raising hourly rates to something more livable, MASS MoCA would not only be supporting its employees, but helping lift the community,” Isabel Twanmo, a field workplace consultant, mentioned in a press release.
