Seattle Art Museum (SAM) safety guards reached a tentative settlement with the establishment yesterday, December 11, ending a 12-day strike that started on November 29.
The SAM Visitor Service Officer (VSO) Union’s 59 safety guards voted overwhelmingly to ratify their first union contract with the museum, securing a elevate in base wages from $21.68 to $24.18 that can take impact beginning subsequent month. The union’s adoption of the brand new contract brings an finish to over two years of stalled negotiations and a virtually two-week strike.
“When there was no further movement that was going to happen in the bargaining room is when we had to take it to the streets,” Andi Berkbigler, a safety guard for over 5 years, instructed Hyperallergic.
The SAM VSO Union efficiently restored pre-pandemic employer 403(b) retirement contributions, beginning at 1% and rising to 3% after three years, the union mentioned in a launch. The museum furloughed a number of part-time customer service staff in 2020, despite the fact that it obtained nearly $5 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans. SAM utilized the retirement contributions change to all employees, the union mentioned.
Before staff started organizing in 2021, the museum’s hourly wage for safety staff was $17.69. When the good points take impact in January, wages may have elevated 37% because the starting of organizing. According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Living Wage Calculator, an grownup with no youngsters should earn $28.70 to assist themselves in Seattle, and $49.50 for an grownup with one little one.
“In recent weeks, after 27 months of contract delays by SAM, negotiations have reached a breaking point, and workers have had no choice but to take drastic measures.” Josh Davis, who has been a SAM safety guard for 11 years, wrote in an opinion for Hyperallergic revealed on November 25.
The union voted to strike in October, Berkbigler mentioned, to push for elevated wages, expanded healthcare advantages, seniority pay, and retirement matching. Berkbigler mentioned the union has “since given up on” increasing well being care advantages for now, however the brand new contract ensures equal or higher well being advantages to workers even when the museum switches suppliers.
SAM VSO Union raised greater than $28,000 on GoFundMe to assist its staff via the strike.
The staff additionally reached a union-security settlement, making the bargaining unit a “union shop,” which means that new safety hires must routinely be a part of the union and pay dues. This will “help the union survive” into its second contract negotiation and set up a concrete relationship with the museum, Berkbigler mentioned.
Scott Stulen, SAM’s Director and CEO, wrote in a press release shared with Hyperallergic, “This contract addresses the unique working conditions of VSOs and the important services they provide while maintaining our commitment to equity across the staff.”
While the union formally began bargaining with the museum in 2022, SAM’s safety officers first organized in solidarity with the neighboring unhoused group. In 2021, after the museum deliberate to put in bollards to discourage unhoused individuals from coming into the museum campus, SAM VSO Union’s predecessor group SAM Workers Collective shaped to forestall their implementation. They feared the constructions, which the union characterised as “hostile architecture,” might promote violence in opposition to unhoused people dwelling outdoors the museum.
The group gathered 600 petition signatures to forestall the museum’s execution of the facade plan, but it surely failed to discourage the bollards. That identical yr, administration contracted a third-party safety agency to patrol the outside of the museum, in keeping with the union. SAM has not but replied to Hyperallergic’s request for remark about an alleged incident of misconduct occurring between a contract safety guard and an unhoused lady.
“What we first organized around was the museum’s unilateral decision to implement hostile architecture,” Berkbigler mentioned. The museum’s safety officers, although, have stood in opposition to “violent policing.”
This first contract, Berkbigler mentioned, falls in need of a habitable wage and ignored seniority pay, but it surely marks a achieve within the union’s standing on the museum.
“It’s a mix of emotions,” Berkbigler mentioned. “I was a little stunned that anything could happen after all this time.”
