Unionised employees of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) staged a protest during a quarterly all-staff meeting on 7 March, with staff calling attention to a disagreement stemming from their autumn 2022 contract that remains unresolved. In images of the protest shared on Instagram and other platforms, union members can be seen standing on the steps of the PMA’s Great Stair Hall and around its perimeter with signs around their neck featuring the numbers five, ten and upward as well as “pay up PMA”.
In October 2022, following a 19-day strike, unionised workers and museum administrators reached an agreement on a contract, which was ratified with 99% support among union members. However, members of the union allege that the museum has yet to honour the measures related to longevity pay due to a disagreement over the contract’s language.
According to the union, per the terms of the contract, employees who work 25 or more hours per week are able to receive a longevity increase of $500 for every five years of employment at the museum. People who work less than 25 hours are eligible for $250 raises that employ the same model. For example, a full-time employee who has worked at the museum for ten years would receive a $1,000 raise on the tenth anniversary of their employment. The raises were to have been implemented on 1 July 2023, according to the union.
“It is disappointing to know that management would rather funnel resources into a costly arbitration process than invest it in their long-tenured staff,” says Amanda Bock, an assistant curator of photographs at the museum and vice-president of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 397 . “Their interpretation is inequitable and nonsensical. Their interpretation results in a system where people with more than 20 years of service have too much longevity for longevity pay increases. It’s a system where two people do the same work, but the least-senior of the two gets a pay increase first. It’s taking a compensation structure that was already deeply flawed and making it worse.”
A union representative adds that the present dispute is now headed to arbitration, which is scheduled to begin on 18 April.
On 7 March, “PMA held our quarterly all staff meeting. These are internal meetings where staff are encouraged to share thoughts and speak freely. As they are internal meetings, we do not share details of these discussions publicly,” a museum spokesperson tells The Art Newspaper. As for the dispute over longevity pay, the spokesperson says “it is governed by the terms of the collective bargaining agreement between AFSCME Local 397 and PMA. The PMA will continue to abide by the terms of the collective bargaining agreement, including the issues of longevity increases and the grievance process.”
