Author: Gwen Egan
Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts workers went on strike Wednesday. Represented by United Auto Workers 2110 (UAW), the MFA workers unionized a year ago in Nov. 2020. Since unionizing, the workers have gone through contract negotiations with management over wages and other issues, according to the Boston Globe. The strike was approved by the union due to the length of the negotiations and the lack of actionable progress being made, according to the union’s public Instagram account.
The MFA cut a large number of full and part-time jobs during the height of the pandemic in 2020. 113 employees total left the MFA.
“We are the workers of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, joining together to gain agency and transparency in matters that impact our daily lives,” wrote the Union on their public Instagram account.
The workers in the union are made up of “public-facing workers” at the MFA, which includes “curators, conservators, library workers, visitor service workers, public-facing staff, educators, and administrative and professional workers,” according to their Instagram.
According to MassLive, the average salary for a worker at the MFA is $53,000, while MFA Director Matthew Teitelbaum’s salary for the 2020 fiscal year was $992,414. Furthermore, the workers want to have a salary increase go into effect in short order. Hayley Rayburn, a union committee member, said to MassLive: “We’ve been bargaining for more than seven months but progress has been painfully slow. Our wages have been frozen since the beginning of the pandemic. The museum isn’t willing to guarantee salary increases for staff until 2024 — and even then, they’ll only commit to a 1.75% raise.”
“Our hope is that the union will respond to our last wage proposal formally and in good faith, communicating their needs and expectations, so that we can get closer to an equitable and sustainable agreement that works for all parties,” said the MFA director of public relations in a written statement to the Boston Globe.
The picketers did not prevent patrons from entering the museum, nor did the MFA shut down their facility for the day. A few patrons chose to visit the museum despite the line of picketers outside. Maida Rosenstein, president of UAW, told the Boston Globe that another strike is not out of the question.