Contemporary Union Movement (since 2019)

The contemporary union movement refers to the significant uptick in new union-organizing campaigns in private nonprofit art museums in 2019 or later. In this spotlight, we explore this surge and how these unions compare to those formed prior to 2019. Since we are defining a new union campaign as a group of workers who join together to collectively bargain for a shared contract, each of the new unions represented in the graphs below are distinguished by having separate contracts, even if they are organizing in solidarity with other workers at the same institution. See the spotlight on public and university art museum unions to see how the contemporary union movement is playing out in other types of art museums.

The early 2020s have seen a sharp increase in new organizing efforts in museums (and other traditionally nonunion sectors, such as nonprofits, gig work, front-line service jobs, the tech and video game industries, higher education, and more).³³ As of 2025, more than two-thirds (68%) of Americans approve of unions (up from the all-time low of 48% in 2009), continualy nearing the historical peak approval rating of 75% in 1953.³⁴

In this context, we wanted to take a closer look at the contemporary movement of museum union organizing. While the COVID-19 pandemic instigated a burst of organizing activity across the country as work and working conditions altered and/or were laid bare, the starting date of 2019 for this wave indicates that these workers’ concerns predated pandemic layoffs and furloughs and reflect long-standing and systemic workplace inequities.

The New Museum Union has often been credited as kicking off this new era, with their campaign announcement in January 2019 leading to an unprecedented wave of new organizing:³⁵ Frye Art Museum (May 2019); engineers at the Guggenheim Museum (June 2019); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Marciano Art Museum (November 2019); and the Shed (January 2020). Amidst record layoffs (largely in response to pandemic-required museum closures, although not without controversy³⁶ ) and a global uprising against racial injustice, museum union drives increased rapidly: Philadelphia Museum of Art (May 2020); Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh (June 2020); Milwaukee Art Museum (August 2020); and the Walker Art Center, Portland Art Museum, and Museum of Fine Arts Boston (all September 2020). Even in the years since the acute impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on museum staffing and budgets, new organizing has continued at a relatively consistent pace. In fact, 2025 saw the highest number of new campaigns announced (10 new unions) of any year prior.

This surge of new organizing speaks both to broader socioeconomic conditions and to the power of workers talking to each other. On and offline, museum workers are recognizing shared struggles, seeing the gains made by their colleagues in similar institutions, and asking: how can we do that? See the abundance of resources for and by museum workers in the Appendix for a glimpse into the cross-museum solidarity charting a new path in a historically individualistic and hyper-competitive industry.³⁷