New York Metropolis Mayoral-Elect Zohran Mamdani has signed an open letter in help of roughly 1,000 staff of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York who filed a petition with the Nationwide Labor Relations Board in November to approve a bargaining unit. The vote is scheduled to happen on January 13 and 15, 2026, and if it passes, the Met would turn out to be the most important unionized museum within the nation.
The letter was launched on December 18 by the United Auto Employees (UAW), which represents the Met staff. It was signed by an meeting of present and incoming New York Metropolis and State officers, together with Comptroller Elect Mark Levine and Manhattan Borough President Elect Brad Hoylman-Sigal. “The Metropolitan Museum of Artwork, a gem of our state, and one of many biggest artwork museums of the world, depends upon its devoted employees who protect and current its assortment, welcome hundreds of holiday makers each day, and disseminate information about artwork past the partitions of the Museum,” reads the letter.
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It continues: “These staff, coming collectively to struggle for higher wages, healthcare, and job safety fulfills the ethos of what we imply after we say, “New York is a Union City.” We proudly help collective bargaining rights for these and different museum staff in New York. We want the employees luck of their election, and we stay up for working with each Museum management and UAW Native 2110 sooner or later towards a good settlement.”
The proposed Met union would cowl curators, conservators, educators, and retail employees. At the moment, two smaller unions on the museum characterize safety guards and projectionists. Native 2110 of the United Auto Employees (UAW) has cited “long run pay inequities, lack of job safety and ever-increasing workloads” as motivations for unionizing. (Native 2110 is a significant union in New York Metropolis, representing staff on the Museum of Trendy Artwork, the Brooklyn Museum, the Guggenheim, the Whitney Museum, the New Museum, and the Shed, amongst others.)
Momentum for unionization within the cultural sector has surged within the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, which highlighted constant pay disparities between administration and front-line staff at museums nationwide. Every marketing campaign has been united by calls for for job safety, increased wages, and clearer paths for development. On the Met, requires higher pay have intensified as management presses forward with main capital initiatives funded by personal donors whose contributions had been explicitly earmarked for this objective.
“Over many a long time, we have now labored to develop a tradition of inclusivity, collaboration and creativity, and take each alternative to uplift our staff,” Ann Bailis, a Met Museum spokeswoman, advised the New York Occasions. “We respect the correct to hunt union illustration and are happy with our longstanding relationships with DC37 and Native 306 IATSE, which characterize a big section of our employees.”
