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[NEWS] After Long Talks, Guggenheim’s Unionised Employees Sign Agreement With The Museum
February 17, 2021
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Photo by Ajay Suresh, via Wikimedia Commons.
After a fraught span of over a year that saw New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum staff protesting in the streets and, shortly thereafter, the face of the museum lit up with slogans protesting its treatment of workers, the Guggenheim Foundation today signed its first collective bargaining agreement with the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 30. The agreement covers twenty-two full-time staff—including engineering and facilities professionals and art services, preparation, and fabrication specialists—and 145 on-call staff involved in the preparation, installation, and maintenance of exhibitions.
Terms include average wage increases of about 10%, transparency in scheduling, work rules and job levels, annual bonuses for on-call workers based on earned wages, and unionised health care programs for full-time workers, who will not have to share in the medical costs. Workers receiving retirement benefits are no longer required to pay into their plans.
From the Guggenheim Union and Local 30 rally on October 3 in New York City. Photo courtesy Brett Wallace
The unionized workers, all of whom voted on June 27, 2019, to be represented by Local 30, had accused the Guggenheim of stalling in its negotiations with the union, which additionally represents installers and maintenance workers at MoMA PS1. After a March 2020 negotiation session was canceled owing to the looming Covid-19 pandemic, the unionized workers sent a letter to the museum’s trustees, pleading for their assistance in goading the Guggenheim’s leadership into action. After a long summer during which the museum closed as the coronavirus raged in New York, and tensions rose regarding racism within the institution, the unionized workers protested in front of the museum prior to its September reopening, with artist-activist collective Artists for Workers and the Illuminator collaborating in support of the workers, and of those at Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, to project slogans such as “Open for Exploitation” and “Austerity Wages for Workers” on the institution’s eight-story facade.
In a statement, Guggenheim director Richard Armstrong greeted the contract, saying he was grateful to unionised colleagues for their contributions towards fulfilling the museum’s mission. “I look forward to an ongoing productive relationship with these talented employees and their union representatives,” he says.
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