Unionized MASS MoCA Workers to Strike Amid Contract Negotiations – RisePEI

The roughly 100 unionized workers at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts, will go on strike on August 19, the union introduced on Monday.

The MASS MoCA employees voted to affix Native 2110 UAW, which additionally represents museum staff on the Museum of Fashionable Artwork, the Whitney, and the Guggenheim, final summer time. Since then, the unionized workers have been attempting to discount for his or her first union contract.

The union is hoping to acquire a minimal hourly charge of $18 for the primary 12 months of the contract, with will increase in 2023 and 2024 that get the minimal “nearer to $20 per hour” by the tip of the contract, in response to the announcement of the one-day strike. MASS MoCA’s present provide is a $16 per hour minimal with no assured will increase, the union stated.

With two-thirds of the employees making $15.50 an hour, a lot of the Museum’s workers reside effectively under a dwelling wage, in response to MIT’s living wage calculator for Berkshire County, the place MASS MoCA is positioned and the place most of its workers stay.

“Many people stay domestically in North Adams. By elevating hourly charges to one thing extra livable, MASS MoCA wouldn’t solely be supporting its workers, however serving to raise the group,” stated Isabel Twanmo, a field workplace consultant who’s on the union’s negotiating committee, stated in a press release.

Maro Elliott, the supervisor of institutional giving and a member of the union’s negotiating committee, stated in a press release that the hope with the brand new contract is to “create a extra accessible, equitable, and simply office.”

“Whereas we respect our workers’ proper to strike as a method of expressing their views, we’re additionally disenchanted of their determination, given the optimistic and collaborative surroundings that we have now labored to foster throughout our collective bargaining course of with the UAW,” a MASS MoCA consultant wrote in an e mail to ARTnews.

The union is not only putting for higher pay however in protest following what it has known as a sample of dangerous religion negotiating. The union has filed a number of unfair labor observe expenses towards MASS MoCA with the Nationwide Labor Relations Board, one in every of which was filed after the museum promised “further raises” to sure workers in the event that they satisfied the union to decrease its wage calls for, in response to the press launch.

Whereas MASS MoCA didn’t deny this of their emailed assertion, the museum claimed to have been “negotiating in good religion with the UAW in an effort to attain a good contract for either side,” and that they’ve labored in direction of sure aims “when their proposals have offered for a optimistic worker expertise, and supported our museum tradition of teamwork, collaboration, and excellence.”

“We’ve made vital progress in direction of reaching a contract and sit up for getting again to the bargaining desk to proceed our negotiations,” learn the assertion.

“All through months of bargaining, MASS MoCA’s representatives have been antagonistic towards our union, telling us the humanities and artists come first. All of us love MASS MoCA however we additionally must stay,” stated union employee Maro Elliott in a press release.