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The MoMA Strike: Will It Ever End?
by Jennifer Dalton
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The Letter
Sheila Kriemelman
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Over a hundred high-profile artists published an open letter in two widely-read New York publications, the Village Voice and Time Out, calling on the Museum of Modern Art to negotiate with its striking workers and seek an end to the strike that has been going on since April.
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The striking employees are members of PASTA-MoMA, the Professional and
Administrative Staff Association of the museum, and include assistant
curators, archivists, conservators, librarians, editors, photographers and
the bookstore staff.
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There's No Free Lunch
Cecily Barth Firestein
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At hand are the typical issues of salaries, benefits, job security and
union participation. The average salary of the generally well-educated,
striking workers is $28,000 a year, lower on average than any of the
museum's other unions and a difficult salary to live on in New York City.
The starting salary at MoMA is $17,000.
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The artists who signed the open letter specifically ask the public to honor
the picket lines at the museum, and berate MoMA for failing to hold more
bargaining sessions with the strikers, as negotiations have been at a
standstill for months.
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Sweep It Under the Rug
Cecily Barth Firestein
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Among the signers are artists Barbara Kruger, Chris
Burden, Robert Rauschenberg, Vito Acconci, Komar & Melamid, Sol Lewitt and
Carolee Schneeman, and luminaries from other cultural fields such as Quentin
Tarantino, David Byrne, Susan Sontag, Steven Spielberg, and John Zorn.
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Read our archived Art in the News |
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