What’s Next

There is much left to learn. At MMF—where our mission is to create a more just museum sector by 2030—we are particularly interested in exploring the power of museum unions (inclusive of and beyond the scope of our initial dataset) and how that power can be channeled toward achieving equity in museums through contract language and enforcement, collective action, political advocacy, labor actions outside of the traditional union model, and cross-sector expressions of solidarity. As union campaign leaders often say to their fellow colleagues: we need to raise our expectations of what is possible.

Moving forward, we hope this Index will:

1. Expand to include publicly owned and university museum unions. From our cursory research we found dozens of such unions representing museum workers. Most of these unions’ collective bargaining agreements only cover certain job titles within the museum and are part of broader university or public sector contracts. These unions are also typically older and more established than most private sector unions—with the exception of those representing The Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (whose contract is also tied to the city contract), and the Minneapolis Institute of Art, which have all organized in some capacity since the 1970s.
2. Display information from different collective bargaining agreements in legible and accessible ways—particularly to collect data and collaborate on ways museum unions can continue to advance equity within and across institutions. This may include comparing minimum wage guarantees with cost-of-living calculations for the cities and towns in which museums are located; identifying contract language that speaks to the concept of “bargaining for the common good,” such as fighting for the divestment from fossil fuels in museum endowment funds or the removal of police officers from museum campuses; and comparing the inclusion of such provisions over time beyond a first contract.
3. Add additional data points, which may include tracking primary issues cited by workers as the reasons for organizing, the challenges to ratifying a first contract, unfair labor practice charges filed against museums, the involvement and cost of external law firms, how bargaining unit sizes change over time, and others.
4. Connect workers at unionized or unionizing museums to learn from one another, regardless of parent union representation, region, or department.
5. Situate the current moment within the long history of artists’ and art workers’ labor advocacy to better understand the rich organizing ecosystem in which museum workers are forming unions. This may include more historical and archival data and references from workers involved in specific unions or other labor actions.

What are you curious about? How would you like to see this project used? Reach out via the COMMENT button or email liz@museumsmovingforward.com to share your feedback and ideas.