NORTH ADAMS — Unionized employees on the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, annoyed with the progress of contract negotiations, have licensed a one-day strike for later this week.
The employees on the North Adams museum, generally known as MASS MoCA, have scheduled a strike and picket exterior the museum from 8 a.m. till 6 p.m. Friday, in keeping with a press release Monday.
“We have asked our members to strike because Mass MoCA has not bargained in good faith on a fair contract for the employees who make it so successful,” Maro Elliott, the museum’s supervisor of institutional giving and a member of the union’s negotiating committee, mentioned in a press release. “We want an agreement with Mass MoCA that will create a more accessible, equitable and just workplace.”
The union, affiliated with the United Auto Workers Local 2110, represents about 100 full- and part-time employees, together with curators, educators, administrative employees, guests companies, custodial and different employees.
The employees, citing low pay and job insecurity in the course of the coronavirus pandemic, fashioned the union early final 12 months, becoming a member of the employees of different famend museums who’ve unionized, together with Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The museum will stay open in the course of the one-day strike, with managers filling in at key posts, a spokesperson mentioned.
“While we respect our employees’ right to strike as a means of expressing their views, we are also disappointed in their decision, given the positive and collaborative environment that we have worked to foster during our collective bargaining process with the UAW,” museum spokesperson Jenny Wright mentioned in an e mail.
The common wage for unionized employees on the museum is $17.30 per hour, in keeping with the union. The union needs a minimal hourly fee of $18 in a contract’s first 12 months and raises over the subsequent two years bringing that to about $20 per hour. The museum is providing a $16 per hour minimal with no assured will increase in 2023 and 2024, the union mentioned.
In a social media put up, the union requested folks planning to go to the museum on Friday to not cross the picket line and to reschedule their visits. The union has additionally filed unfair labor observe fees towards the museum with the National Labor Relations Board, citing what it calls “bad faith bargaining.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”