Amid MoMA’s $450 Million Expansion, Employee Tensions Are Running High

MoMA Local 2110’s “Party on the Pavement” protest during the Museum of Modern Art’s annual gala fundraiser “Party in the Garden,” May 31, 2018. Courtesy of MoMA Local 2110.

MoMA Local 2110’s “Party on the Pavement” protest during the Museum of Modern Art’s annual gala fundraiser “Party in the Garden,” May 31, 2018. Courtesy of MoMA Local 2110.

Legions of museum staff at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) are racing to meet deadlines as the New York City institution undergoes a $450 million renovation and expansion, its second major overhaul in two decades. But due to stalled union negotiations over issues such as raises for longtime employees, healthcare costs, and job security for entry-level curators, more than 250 of them have been working without a contract since May 20th and are inching closer to going on strike for the first time since 2000, when the museum was about to close for its previous expansion project and significantly reduce its workforce with little guarantee that past employees would be hired back.

The dispute is not the first of its kind, either for MoMA or for any number of major institutions that spend lavishly on expansions while refusing to meet their workers’ demands.

“Unfortunately, it’s very consistent with what [the museum] did in 2000, and it’s very consistent with what you see happening in private universities and wealthy private nonprofits,” said Maida Rosenstein, the president of Local 2110 of United Auto Workers, the union that represents the largest number of MoMA employees, as well as workers at Barnard College, Columbia University, and New York University. “You see Columbia University and NYU buying up an enormous amount of land, raising billions of dollars to fund their expansions, while being extremely tight-fisted with their workers—and actually trying to use the expansion as a justification for that. It’s really infuriating to see that happen again at MoMA.”

This expansion has exacerbated staffing shortages and pushed existing workers to work longer hours, according to museum employees, despite many of them not being eligible for overtime pay. The average salary for members of Local 2110—including editors, educators, accountants, curators, designers, salespeople, and librarians—is below $50,000, Rosenstein said. The union’s bargaining committee is pushing for MoMA to hire more non-temporary workers, while also increasing job security for entry-level curatorial staff, who can currently be dismissed without cause, according to Local 2110.