Following successful organizing drives at the Natural History Museum and La Brea Tar Pits, employees at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Wednesday announced they are seeking to form a union, LACMA United, representing more than 300 workers from across all departments.
The move comes just six months before the museum is scheduled to open its $720 million David Geffen Galleries, which will house LACMA’s permanent collection.
By forming LACMA United, with AFSCME Cultural Workers United District Council 36, workers say they aim to address such issues as wages and increasing workloads due to high turnover, limited resources and vacated or frozen positions, often without additional compensation.
“Many employees are struggling with wages that have not kept up with the rising cost of living in the sixth most expensive city in the world,” museum workers asserted Wednesday in a letter addressed to LACMA staff, its executive team and board of trustees.
“I’ve had the privilege of editing books and exhibition materials at LACMA for nearly 25 years,” Sara Cody, who works as a senior publications editor, said in a statement. “But as departments have shrunk and workloads have grown increasingly unsustainable, it’s become more and more challenging to uphold the level of excellence these projects deserve. Forming our union will ensure that we all have the resources and respect to consistently produce our best work as the museum moves forward.”
LACMA Director Michael Govan said in a statement shared with City News Service that the museum’s leadership has received the letter from LACMA United.
“We are reviewing it carefully and very much look forward to continuing to support our amazing staff,” he said.
The union asked the executives and trustees to voluntarily recognize LACMA United by Nov. 5.
In the last few years, Los Angeles County cultural institutions such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and Foundation, and most recently the Natural History Museum and La Brea Tar Pits granted voluntary recognition to their staff unions, all of whom also organized with AFSCME District Council 36 and are part of AFSCME Cultural Workers United.