Brooklyn Museum, Whitney, American Folk Art Staff Vote For Strikes

(MENAFN- USA Art News) Unionized employees at three prominent New York City cultural institutions, the Brooklyn Museum, the American Folk Art Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, have voted to authorize strike action if their ongoing contract negotiations do not result in satisfactory offers, Local 2110 UAW announced.

Local 2110 UAW, which represents workers across numerous museums and cultural venues nationwide, confirmed that its members overwhelmingly backed the union's elected bargaining committee to call a strike. While negotiations are ongoing, no specific strike deadline has been set. Derrick Charles, a membership associate at the Whitney and union chairperson, stated,“It's not that we want to strike. We'd rather be working and doing our jobs but our wages are untenable for making ends meet in New York City.” Charles, who has worked in the lobby selling admissions and assisting visitors since 2018, currently earns $24 an hour. The 2026 NYC True Cost of Living Measure Annual Report (TCOL) from the New York City government estimates that a single New Yorker without children needs to earn $34 an hour to cover the city's current living expenses. The union emphasized that all three museums must increase their minimum pay rates, noting that average staff wages are below the $71,000 annual salary identified by the TCOL report as the minimum for a single adult to afford living in New York City.

Staff at the American Folk Art Museum (Afam) unanimously voted to unionize with UAW Local 2110 in June 2024. The union represents employees across various departments, including education, curatorial, visitor services, and IT, at the museum's Upper West Side Manhattan galleries and its Queens center. A spokesperson for Afam told ARTnews that its leadership is“committed to continuing to bargain in good faith toward a fair and mutually beneficial contract.”

At the Whitney Museum, approximately 200 employees unionized in 2021, following two rounds of layoffs that reduced the workforce by 20 percent. They secured layoff protections, minimum pay increases, and an average 15 percent retroactive wage increase, among other provisions, after 16 months of negotiations for their first collective bargaining agreement. Negotiations for their second contract included a union rally held outside the museum's annual gala on May 19, where members carried signs. A Whitney Museum spokesperson informed ARTnews that it“continues bargaining in good faith and remains committed to arriving at a fair, reasonable contract that respects the needs of all parties.”

The unions at the Brooklyn Museum have experienced a challenging period leading up to this announcement. Last year, museum leadership reversed plans to lay off more than a dozen workers after receiving a $2.5 million grant from the New York City Council. In February 2025, the Brooklyn Museum had announced intentions to cut over 10 percent of its staff, citing a widening deficit. This decision drew criticism from the two unions representing museum workers, DC 37 Local 1502 and UAW Local 2110, who stated that the cuts were announced without negotiation. Brooklyn union members rallied outside the museum for weeks, leading to intervention from city leaders, including a special oversight hearing on February 28. At this hearing, Committee on Civil Service and Labor Chair Carmen De La Rosa emphasized that layoffs“should be the absolute last resort.” Elizabeth St. George, an assistant curator at the Brooklyn Museum, expressed concerns about health care and job security. She stated,“I've never expected to get rich as a curator, but I want to be able to rely on having a job with affordable health care and a reasonable salary so I can concentrate on doing the work I love.” The Brooklyn Museum did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.

Source: ARTnews

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