LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art Swiftly Agrees to Recognize Its New Union as Museum Workers Across the Country Continue to Organize

Adding to what is a rapidly growing number of
museums unionizing, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los
Angeles (MOCA) announced Friday that it will voluntarily recognize
a new union, formed two weeks ago by more than 100 visitor services
staffers. That puts MOCA in good company, joining other big-name
institutions who recently did the same on
the East Coast, including the Guggenheim and the New
Museum. 

Not every institution is open to
the demands of organized labor. Another Angeleno venue, the
Marciano Art Foundation, revealed on Friday that it will be closing
permanently after union efforts had been put forth. MOCA’s decision
makes it only the second Los Angeles-based museum, after the Museum
of Tolerance, to acknowledge a union.

“We’re taking this step to come
together as one team, one MOCA,” said director Klaus Biesenbach in a statement.
The German-born art world figure
just recently took the helm of the Southern California
establishment in July of 2018 after holding high-profile posts at
New York’s MoMA and MoMA PS1 since 1995.

“We have spent the last two
weeks thoroughly considering the staff’s initiative through the
lens of MOCA’s vision of being a civic-minded institution,” he
continued, “and we concluded that we want to be supportive of this
effort.” The resolution comes two weeks after reports
that “dozens” of museum employees
approached Biesenbach personally at his office to officially
outline their motives with the American Federation of State,
Federal, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

Low wages, lack of benefits,
schedule instability, and high turnover were cited as the primary
grievances behind MOCA employees’ collective action. Logistical
details with the National Labor Relations Board will be hammered
out by independent auditors next week, after which formal
negotiations will begin. “We look forward to moving
forward in good faith to establish an equitable and sustainable
contract,” Biesenbach said.

Meanwhile, down the street in
the city’s Mid-Wilshire neighborhood, the Marciano Foundation
announced the shuttering of its doors following movements toward
unionization. It was a relatively new institution, launched in
2017. Established by Guess co-founders Maurice and Paul Marciano,
the massive exhibition space housed the pair’s roughly 1,500 piece
collection of contemporary art, including works by Sterling Ruby,
Barbara Kruger, Yael Bartana, and Christopher Wool, among many
others. 

The non-profit closed early last month
after a spate of employees—also in the museum’s visitor
services department—announced their intent to unionize, which
prompted the closure in addition to a lay-off of nearly 60
staffers. In response, the Marciano Art Foundation union plans to
move forward in filing an unfair labor practice claim against the
organization, positing that the downsizing and closure were
attempts to intimidate the union and its members.

According to
Hyperallergic, documents assert that the Marciano Art
Foundation “illegally discriminated against its employees by laying
off employees en masse and/or closing its facility because
employees … engaged in union and other concerted activities.”
Artnet News reached out to representatives for the Marciano Art
Foundation, but did not receive comment by press time.

The post LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art Swiftly Agrees to
Recognize Its New Union as Museum Workers Across the Country
Continue to Organize appeared first on artnet News.