There are few things that United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain loves more than launching profane rants that are documented by the union’s federal monitor. One of those things would be voluminous picket lines.
Fain is rubbing his hands together like a cartoon villain over his 2028 general strike plans. He relished the UAW’s so-called “Stand-Up Strike” against the Big Three automakers in 2023. That event peaked with around 40,000 participating workers, and the union later put about 48,000 University of California workers on strike.
Could Fain be hoping for the same with museum workers? He won’t reach the above numbers, but his union is aiming for art-world disruption.
From Petitions To Picket Lines
When the NLRB reopened late last year, museum worker petitions stood out among the initial flood. The wave continued through this summer, so this is not a passing trend, although it remains absurd that 900+ workers at NYC’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (“The Met”) believe that the UAW is somehow equipped to represent them.
By the way, bargaining sessions at The Met haven’t led to a contract yet.
The UAW has been aggressive in its efforts to unionize museum guest service workers, educators, technologists, curators, librarians, volunteer coordinators, and other roles. The union recently won in its own backyard at the Michigan Science Center in Detroit, and in NYC, museum workers are increasingly greenlighting UAW strikes.
On Sept. 17, over 300 UAW-represented workers from three NYC museums–the Brooklyn Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the American Folk Art Museum–voted to authorize a strike. No strike date has been pinpointed yet, but these greenlights happened on the same day, and the union pointed out that “each museum has a major exhibition opening in early October.” And back in June, UAW members at NYC’s Guggenheim Museum also authorized a strike after contract negotiations stalled, although that strike hasn’t happened yet.
Granted, the UAW is not the only union that’s organizing museum workers lately. AFSCME has claimed success in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Denver. In Rochester, NY, George Eastman Museum staffers filed a petition for a Workers United election. The UAW isn’t the sole union authorizing strikes, either. In Sausalito, CA, Bay Area Discovery Museum SEIU members greenlit a strike over their frustrations with contract discussions.
For Now, Watching And Waiting
In Shawn Fain’s eyes, there ain’t no strike like a UAW strike, and although these four UAW museum-strike authorizations don’t add up to Big Three or University of California volume, this is still something that employers shouldn’t ignore. If union members at The Met also give the greenlight, over a thousand museum workers could walk out of their jobs, which would cause massive headaches for the Big Apple’s art world.
What we know is this: the UAW has been collecting museum workers over the past year, and the union is not being subtle about mentioning that those October exhibition openings are coming. Fain loves to coordinate strikes, and this could give him media coverage for something other than that grand jury subpoena.
For employers in any industry, this is a reminder that although workers might feel passionate about their fields, that passion has limits. If pay rates and job security start to feel shaky, and an organization’s public-facing values don’t match its internal practices, workers are more likely to listen when union organizers roll around. Museums are learning that now, and the same goes for universities, hospitals, and just about every other field these days. Leaders who maintain direct relationships with their workers, on the other hand, will be much more prepared to avoid the bargaining table.
