Guard the Guards, Not Simply the Artwork, Says Baltimore Museum Union in Demonstration
At 9:30am immediately, March 22, round a dozen members of the Baltimore Museum of Artwork (BMA) Union held an indication proper off the entrance steps main as much as the historic entrance of the museum. They held placards that learn “Guarding the Guards” — a rewording of the exhibition title Guarding the Artwork, curated by the museum’s safety guards and opening to press similtaneously their motion. Different indicators mentioned “1 Voice 1 Union,” “Wall-to-Wall Union Election,” and “Signal Our Union Election Settlement Now.”
The employees’ objective was to place stress on museum Director Christopher Bedford to signal the Metropolis of Baltimore’s union election settlement, which staff say he obtained two months in the past. With out his signature, staff can’t vote to certify their union — which a petition on BMA Union’s web site claims a majority of eligible workers help. The hourlong demonstration was sandwiched right into a packed day for the employees. A lot of them had simply come from a gathering with Bedford and Chief Working Officer Christine Dietz, and a few had been headed again to the museum to work on a present curated by most of the similar guards who’re advocating for unionization.
“We had been making an attempt to co-opt and piggyback on the media preview day for the Guarding the Artwork exhibition,” Dereck Mangus, a safety guard on the museum, advised Hyperallergic.
“The union has mainly tried to place their cash the place their mouth is,” he continued. “It’s like, all proper — we agree with [the museum’s] progressive imaginative and prescient and we acknowledge tasks like Guarding the Artwork are in good religion, and a small step in the proper path. However we have to prolong this to all departments, not simply guards — and to have a union.”
The assembly this morning adopted a extra adversarial all-staff e mail from Bedford despatched on March 10, additionally posted on BMA’s web site, that indicated museum management was unwilling to conduct an election by town as a result of it vested an excessive amount of authority in a third-party arbitrator. In that very same e mail, Bedford additionally reportedly inspired staff to think about conducting the union election by the Nationwide Labor Relations Board (NLRB). However that possibility is categorically unappealing to BMA workers as a result of the NLRB retains a rule they take into account antiquated, which might forestall the union from representing each safety guards and the remainder of the museum’s staff.
“The aim of that e mail actually was to trigger confusion round this course of,” a spokesperson for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers (AFSCME) advised Hyperallergic. “How will you rejoice the safety guards, however in the identical breath, exclude them by suggesting this course of?”
The spokesperson added that BMA staff had been “actually blissful … to get their messages throughout” this morning, “each of their assembly with Bedford and publicly out within the open.” An e mail from the union despatched to management and the board of trustees this afternoon, reviewed by Hyperallergic, mentioned that Bedford expressed “help of guards and non-guards being in a single unit” throughout the assembly.
The motion immediately was the BMA Union’s first bodily demonstration since they first publicized their intention to kind a union in September of final 12 months, with the objectives of enhancing job safety, wages, accountability, and well being and security protections on the museum. Employees additionally cited their need to be included in conversations round reopening throughout the pandemic and their curiosity in pushing the BMA to appreciate its personal imaginative and prescient of changing into a extra various and equitable establishment — a promise made beneath Bedford’s management in 2020, when he controversially proposed deaccessioning three main works within the museum’s assortment to fund fairness initiatives.
Inside days of launching the marketing campaign, the BMA Union received the help of a majority of museum staff. On October 5, a weblog submit on AFSCME’s web site formally introduced the BMA Union’s intention to unionize with AFSCME Council 67, the native Baltimore-based chapter of the biggest commerce union of public staff in the USA. The employees moreover formally requested a union election by town of Baltimore in October.
Mangus, who has written about museum unions and about his expertise curating Guarding the Artwork for Hyperallergic, added that they “received near assembly midway” with museum management throughout the talks immediately.
However there’s further concern that museum management will drag their toes over the subsequent few months provided that Bedford will likely be leaving the BMA to imagine the helm on the San Francisco Museum of Artwork (SFMOMA) — a unionized museum — in June.
“They drag us alongside by these processes and stall, simply to induce concern and even apathy,” Mangus mentioned. He cited efforts throughout city on the Walters Artwork Museum, which have additionally been stonewalled by comparable techniques employed by museum management.
When reached for remark, a spokesperson for the BMA despatched Hyperallergic a hyperlink to the March 10 assertion, which says that “a city-run election, as was requested by BMA union organizers, isn’t a viable possibility.”
“The BMA’s board and management will respect the end result of a vote and can proceed to work with workers towards larger fairness, no matter that end result,” the assertion says.
The opening of Guarding the Artwork offers an ideal backdrop for staff to distill the essence of their motivation to unionize — capturing in a nutshell each the distinctive alternatives they’ve, but in addition the challenges they proceed to face, as workers members at purportedly progressive establishments determined to show their dedication to variety, fairness, and inclusion. Seventeen members of the BMA’s safety workforce co-curated the present, choosing works that had been significantly significant to them. They may even take part in talks and Q&As in late April to debate their work on the challenge.
“We’re de-privileging individuals who normally have the ability like curators, and privileging individuals who don’t have that type of company and energy as guards,” Rob Kempton, a safety guard who was additionally a Guarding the Artwork curator, advised Hyperallergic. “It’s a really kaleidoscopic present. It’s various in its providing, showcasing totally different artwork historic canons and time durations.” Kempton added that he hoped this present would “spark a torch” at different museums.
Now that guards are questioning lengthy unquestioned labor hierarchies at museums, obliterating the bogus divide between service and curatorial positions, they’re seizing the second to demand higher labor circumstances.
“We wish livable wages and to have the ability to stay effectively. It’s not that we aren’t, however I discover it exhausting to save lots of — I’m dwelling paycheck to paycheck,” Kempton mentioned. “I believe our efforts are warranted, and we aren’t going to go down with no struggle.”