Staff at the New Museum voted to unionize.
Pro-union staff at the New Museum. Photo courtesy New Museum Union.
After the staff of the New Museum initiated the process of forming a union earlier this month, a vote was held on Thursday in which the employees voted overwhelmingly in favor of unionizing. In a statement yesterday, the staff wrote:
We are excited to announce that we have won the union election. There were 38 ballots cast in favor, 8 opposed, and 10 under challenge. The employees of the New Museum voted 83% for establishing NewMuU-UAW Local 2110.
“It seems like one of the main concerns from those opposed was fear of retaliation,” Alicia Graziano, a New Museum employee and union organizer, told Artsy. “For the past few weeks, the museum has spread a lot of misinformation which has created an atmosphere of fear and mistrust.”
OMG WE WON!! pic.twitter.com/SdGalLoiPs
— New Museum Union (@newmuseum_union) January 24, 2019
Local 2110, which the New Museum union elected to join, is a United Auto Workers group that also oversees unions at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the New York Historical Society, and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Union members at the latter protested last summer amid stalled negotiations for a contract for Local 2110’s more than 250 members at the institution.
Graziano added:
The museum has said that they respect our decision and will move forward in good faith. We hope that the end of the election will relieve some of the tension that has accumulated in the past few weeks. This is an opportunity for us as a museum community to work together to create sustainable change.
