After greater than a yr of negotiations, unionised staff on the Whitney Museum of American artwork and the museum’s administration introduced on Monday (6 March) that the union had ratified its first contract. The union, part of Native 2110 of the United Auto Staff (UAW), represents near 200 staff on the Whitney. The brand new contract, which incorporates many provisions the union had sought, is legitimate by 30 June 2026.
Laborious-won options of the contract for the union embody minimal pay will increase and common wage will increase for unionised staff throughout the board. This features a new minimal pay grade or a 5% improve, whichever is larger. This may lead to a median pay improve of 15%; with the brand new contract, workers members who made the minimal hourly charge of $17 will now be paid $22, retroactive to 1 January 2023. By the top of June 2025, these staff will earn $24 per hour. Following the contract’s ratification, museum staff will obtain a one-time, $1,000 bonus.
The contract additionally extends lots of the advantages received for members to non permanent staff, specifying that the latter shall be paid the identical minimal hourly charge that common workers obtain, in addition to paid holidays and preferential positioning for everlasting jobs as they change into accessible.
“We’re thrilled to have reached an settlement with the museum, and see this as an vital win for the sphere as a complete in that it lays the muse for extra sustainable and equitable employment for museum staff now and sooner or later,” Ramsay Kobler, a curatorial analysis affiliate on the Whitney and member of the union bargaining committee, tells The Artwork Newspaper.
“The Whitney Museum of American Artwork is happy to achieve an settlement with UAW Native 2110,” a spokesperson for the museum says. “After negotiating in good religion for a lot of months, we’ve got finalized a contract that serves the most effective pursuits of our workers. We look ahead to a longstanding and productive working relationship with 2110.”
Because the union’s formation, negotiations have been ongoing and have stalled at numerous factors. This led the union to organise a number of rallies and actions, together with leafleting in the course of the Whitney’s Artwork Occasion earlier this yr, throughout final yr’s profit gala and in the course of the VIP preview of the 2022 Whitney Biennial.
Following the wave of layoffs and furloughs within the museum sector on the top of the Covid-19 pandemic (together with on the Whitney), and amid widening gaps in pay and job safety (amongst different points) within the sector, many cultural staff at establishments throughout the US have taken steps to kind unions and collectively cut price for higher working situations.
Staff on the Whitney petitioned to kind a union as a part of UAW Native 2110 in Might of 2021, and the next month the museum voluntarily recognised the union. The identical union additionally represents staff at quite a few cultural establishments throughout the northeastern United States together with the Museum of Fashionable Artwork, Mass Moca, the Jewish Museum, the Museum of Wonderful Arts in Boston and the Brooklyn Museum.
