Seattle Artwork Museum (SAM) safety guards reached a tentative settlement with the establishment yesterday, December 11, ending a 12-day strike that started on November 29.
The SAM Customer Service Officer (VSO) Union’s 59 safety guards voted overwhelmingly to ratify their first union contract with the museum, securing a increase in base wages from $21.68 to $24.18 that may take impact beginning subsequent month. The union’s adoption of the brand new contract brings an finish to over two years of stalled negotiations and a virtually two-week strike.
“When there was no additional motion that was going to occur within the bargaining room is once we needed to take it to the streets,” Andi Berkbigler, a safety guard for over 5 years, advised Hyperallergic.
The SAM VSO Union efficiently restored pre-pandemic employer 403(b) retirement contributions, beginning at 1% and rising to three% after three years, the union stated in a launch. The museum furloughed a number of part-time customer service employees in 2020, although it obtained nearly $5 million in Paycheck Safety Program loans. SAM utilized the retirement contributions change to all employees, the union stated.
Earlier than employees started organizing in 2021, the museum’s hourly wage for safety employees was $17.69. When the positive aspects take impact in January, wages could have elevated 37% for the reason that starting of organizing. In response to the Massachusetts Institute of Know-how’s Dwelling Wage Calculator, an grownup with no youngsters should earn $28.70 to assist themselves in Seattle, and $49.50 for an grownup with one little one.
“In latest weeks, after 27 months of contract delays by SAM, negotiations have reached a breaking level, and employees have had no selection however to take drastic measures.” Josh Davis, who has been a SAM safety guard for 11 years, wrote in an opinion for Hyperallergic printed on November 25.
The union voted to strike in October, Berkbigler stated, to push for elevated wages, expanded healthcare advantages, seniority pay, and retirement matching. Berkbigler stated the union has “since given up on” increasing well being care advantages for now, however the brand new contract ensures equal or higher well being advantages to workers even when the museum switches suppliers.
SAM VSO Union raised greater than $28,000 on GoFundMe to assist its employees by way of the strike.
The employees additionally reached a union-security settlement, making the bargaining unit a “union store,” which means that new safety hires must routinely be a part of the union and pay dues. This can “assist the union survive” into its second contract negotiation and set up a concrete relationship with the museum, Berkbigler stated.
Scott Stulen, SAM’s Director and CEO, wrote in an announcement shared with Hyperallergic, “This contract addresses the distinctive working circumstances of VSOs and the necessary companies they supply whereas sustaining our dedication to fairness throughout the employees.”
Whereas the union formally began bargaining with the museum in 2022, SAM’s safety officers first organized in solidarity with the neighboring unhoused group. In 2021, after the museum deliberate to put in bollards to discourage unhoused individuals from getting into the museum campus, SAM VSO Union’s predecessor group SAM Staff Collective fashioned to forestall their implementation. They feared the buildings, which the union characterised as “hostile structure,” might promote violence towards unhoused people residing exterior the museum.
The group gathered 600 petition signatures to forestall the museum’s execution of the facade plan, but it surely failed to discourage the bollards. That very same yr, administration contracted a third-party safety agency to patrol the outside of the museum, based on the union. SAM has not but replied to Hyperallergic’s request for remark about an alleged incident of misconduct occurring between a contract safety guard and an unhoused lady.
“What we first organized round was the museum’s unilateral choice to implement hostile structure,” Berkbigler stated. The museum’s safety officers, although, have stood in opposition to “violent policing.”
This primary contract, Berkbigler stated, falls in need of a habitable wage and overlooked seniority pay, but it surely marks a achieve within the union’s standing on the museum.
“It’s a mixture of feelings,” Berkbigler stated. “I used to be a bit of shocked that something might occur in any case this time.”
