Philadelphia Museum of Art staff and their supporters rally outside the museum in 2022.
Photo: Tim Tiebout
Jessica Fuentes talks with Dallas’ Darryl Ratcliff about the rise of unions for arts and culture workers.
“Ultimately, we’re all served by a more engaged public, and we’re all served by taking care of people. And I know that our large institutions and their supporters want to do that, and sometimes it is up to us as artists, as culture workers, as people who are more on the ground, to help lead the way.”
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Related Readings:
—Two Texas Writers Awarded $50,000 Rabkin Prize; Peter Schjeldahl Wins Lifetime Achievement Award
—NYT: U.S. Museums See Rise in Unions Even as Labor Movement Slumps
—The Art Newspaper: State of the unions: why US museum workers are mobilising against their employers
—NYT: Guggenheim Museum Staff Ratifies Union Contract
—Artforum: Museums and Unionization
—American Alliance of Museums: National Museum Salary Survey
—Glasstire: Dallas Museum of Art Lays Off 8% of its Staff; Reduces Public Hours
—Glasstire: Art Dirt: Radical Transparency & the Arts Salary Spreadsheet
—Glasstire: Cedars Union Becomes First W.A.G.E. Certified Dallas Organization
—Glasstire: Artists’ Payday is Here: Art League Houston Now W.A.G.E. Certified
—Glasstire: Artists! Get paid to do what you love.
—Artists & Cultural Workers Union Interest Form
2 comments
I’m no expert on this topic, but another worthwhile, related reading might be Julia Bryan-Wilson’s “Art Workers: Radical Practice in the Vietnam War Era” (U. of California, 2009, named a best book of the year by the New York Times and Artforum; see https://www.amazon.com/Art-Workers-Radical-Practice-Vietnam/dp/0520269756 ). “She traces the divergent ways in which… artists and writers rallied around the “art worker” identity, including participating in the Art Workers’ Coalition―a short-lived organization founded in 1969 to protest the war and agitate for artists’ rights―and the New York Art Strike.”
Where’s the acknowledgement & support of the creative workers at Say Si and their efforts in unionizing?