Three NYC Museum Unions Ratify Contracts, Averting Strikes
Workers at the American Folk Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum, and Guggenheim Museum had bargained for higher pay and better working conditions.
After months of collective bargaining and looming strikes, unionized staff at the Brooklyn Museum and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum have ratified their second contracts with their respective institutions, while the American Folk Art Museum (AFAM) union is celebrating the ratification of its first contract with the museum.
These developments come after the Whitney Museum of American Art, Brooklyn Museum, and AFAM unions jointly voted to authorize strike action last month if a tentative agreement could not be reached, falling in line with the Guggenheim union, which had voted in favor of a strike at the end of June.
However, unionized Whitney staff have set a strike deadline of Monday, October 5, ahead of the press and VIP previews and opening date for the museum's Roy Lichtenstein retrospective that week, which they are prepared to picket throughout.
Ahead of their second contracts, the Brooklyn Museum and the Guggenheim were under intense scrutiny early into 2025 after initiating sweeping staff cuts, which they attributed to mounting financial constraints.
