Workers at the Metropolitan Museum of Art have petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to facilitate a union election for nearly 1,000 full- and part-time employees, according to a press release from Local 2110 UAW today, November 17. Workers ranging from salaried to hourly staff cited “long term pay inequities, lack of job protection and ever-increasing workloads” as reasons for organizing.
Nearly half of the museum’s 2,015 employees would be represented if the vote to unionize passes, making The Met’s unit one of the largest museum unions in the United States.
“The Met strives to ensure that we are not only one of the world’s leading art museums, but that we are also a workplace where our exceptional staff can succeed and thrive,” a spokesperson for The Met said in a statement to Hyperallergic. “We respect the right to seek union representation and are proud of our longstanding relationships with DC37 and Local 306 IATSE, which represent a large segment of our staff.”
Staff at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the New Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Jewish Museum, and The Shed, among myriad others, have organized under Local 2110 UAW in recent years, with the apex of efforts coming shortly after quarantine restrictions were lifted during the coronavirus pandemic.
“The union effort was started during the pandemic by a group of long-time staff who know the Met extremely well and have been through multiple crises where we have lost staff and benefits,” said Rebecca Capua, a conservator who has been employed at The Met for 16 years, in a statement. Local 2110 UAW reported that staff at The Met officially reached out in 2022.
“The process wasn’t fast, but organizers tried to be as thorough and as inclusive as possible to get to this point,” Local 2110 UAW’s Director of Organizing, Maida Rosenstein, explained in an email to Hyperallergic.
“The Met is an amazing place. I’ve worked here almost 20 years, and love it,” Alison Clark, a collections manager, also said in the statement.
“However, the Museum often makes decisions without considering or consulting staff, such as changes to our Work from Home policy and erosion of our health and other benefits,” Clark continued. “Right now, we’re contending with several large-scale capital projects that displace people and create a lot of additional work for the staff. Unionizing is the only way for us to have a strong collective voice to address concerns with the Museum.”
The parameters for desired pay equity and specific health benefits have yet to be defined by the staff pushing to organize. However, The Met’s spokesperson clarified that the museum’s current pay increase schedule sits at 4% annually, and that 600 employees are currently earning over $100,000.
