Unionised workers on the Whitney Museum of American Artwork plan to start a strike on 5 October if a good contract settlement can’t be reached with the museum’s management. Employees declare their salaries are insufficient in gentle of inflation and the price of dwelling in New York, and have raised issues round rising healthcare prices and premiums.
The three-year contract between the Whitney and unionised workers beneath United Auto Employees (UAW) Native 2110 expired in June this yr. Entry-level workers got a increase from $17 to $24 per hour, and had been promised provisions like profit contributions and gradual skilled improvement. However the union claims the museum’s presents have been inadequate, and state that it has been negotiating with the Whitney since Could with out reaching a decision.
The union is asking for the museum to boost salaries to $71,000 per yr, a determine cited in an annual New York Metropolis price of dwelling report because the minimal wanted for a single grownup to afford to reside within the metropolis. The union has additionally pointed to the Whitney’s greater than $1bn endowment and govt compensation as proof that it believes the museum has the sources to satisfy its calls for.
One of many museum staff represented by UAW Native 2110, Micah Musheno, has been working on the Whitney for practically a decade. As an undergraduate pupil, she joined the museum as an intern within the curatorial division, working beneath Elisabeth Sussman, who was then the curator of pictures. She interned for 3 semesters—a full calendar yr—fully unpaid, because the museum’s internship programme on the time didn’t present a stipend.
“However I cherished the work, and I cherished the initiatives I used to be engaged on,” Musheno tells The Artwork Newspaper. “And I allow them to know that I might like to return after graduating.”
When Musheno graduated in 2016, she was employed right into a project-based function within the curatorial division, working as a second assistant to Scott Rothkopf, the Whitney’s director who was then its chief curator, then moved over to turn into Sussman’s curatorial assistant whereas her then-curatorial assistant was on depart. Her contract was prolonged and she or he moved via a number of roles earlier than being given a full-time place in 2018 because the licensing supervisor.
“The Whitney is the one place I’ve ever labored,” Musheno says. “Turnover has been an actual factor on the museum within the final couple of years. I felt that I’ve plenty of institutional data and can be necessary to be a voice for my colleagues, and that’s why I joined the negotiating committee.”
The Whitney union voted to authorise strike motion in mid-September alongside staff on the Brooklyn Museum and the American Folks Artwork Museum, that are represented by the UAW Native 2110. The three unions initially authorised their bargaining committees to set strike deadlines if agreements couldn’t be reached. (Employees on the Brooklyn Museum have since reached a tentative settlement on a brand new contract, which union members are voting on this week, doubtlessly averting a strike there.)
The doable strike on the Whitney may disrupt plans round a forthcoming retrospective devoted to Roy Lichtenstein, Like New, which opens on 11 October. The press and member previews for the exhibition start on 6 October, with the preview reception the next day and a number of other different VIP and donor occasions on the calendar.
Maida Rosenstein, the director of organising for UAW Native 2110, says the strike is at the moment open-ended and will proceed indefinitely. A spokesperson for the museum says that the Whitney “continues bargaining in good religion and stays dedicated to arriving at a good, affordable contract that respects the wants of all events”.
UAW Native 2110 has organised unions at plenty of New York cultural establishments, together with the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork and the Museum of Trendy Artwork. The union is at the moment bargaining with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Noguchi Museum, the place staff individually voted to authorise strikes earlier this yr.
