THE MoMA PICKET LINES: AN OPEN LETTER TO THE ART COMMUNITY FROM THE PROFESSIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF OF THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

As many of you might already know, the Professional and Administrative Staff Association of The Museum of Modern Art (PASTA-MoMA) has been on strike since April 28, after a substantial majority of its members voted to reject the Museum's final contract offer. We would like to briefly introduce some of the issues at stake in the hopes of clarifying the reasons for our current actions, and because these issues have relevance for the larger art community.

We, the Museum's curators, librarians, archivists, registrars, educators, editors, conservators, and administrative staff, are asking for a fair contract. Negotiations began seven months ago and have now broken off, and we feel that we have yet to see good-faith bargaining from the Museum. The issues in contention are basic ones, including a modest pay increase and the security of our healthcare coverage.

The current starting salary for some 40 positions at the Museum is $17,000 per year, and the median salary of all PASTA members is less than ũ29,000. We have asked management to raise minimum salaries to $20,000, but it has refused to make any increase over $17,510. We have asked for a first year 5% across-the-board increase with 4% for subsequent years, which was also refused. The salaries of nonmanagement MoMA staffers are sufficiently low that each percentage point of pay increase for all 250 employees in the bargaining unit costs the Museum only $70,000, a sum it often earns in a single day through the sale of admission tickets alone.

As for healthcare, the Museum has asked the union to forfeit its right to negotiate with management over any changes to the healthcare package that management may propose during the life of the contract÷a right that is granted to unions by U.S. law. This proposal, if the union accepted it, would effectively allow the Museum to cut back the staff's healthcare at any time and to any degree without consulting PASTA as to what the healthcare priorities of its members might be. The Museum has denied that it intends to reduce the healthcare package, but it has not made clear to us why, in that case, it wants the union to give up its healthcare negotiating rights.

There are currently five other unions at MoMA, which represent functions of the Museum including security, art handling, and housekeeping. Of all the unions, PASTA has the lowest base pay, average pay, and median pay. We are also the only union in which membership is purely optional, a weakness that management has used to try to divide us. These facts merit the attention not only of the Museum's management and our Board of Trustees but of the art world at large÷all the artists, teachers and professors of art and art history, all the professionals and trustees of other museums and not-for-profit organizations, all the writers and critics, and anyone who believes that art is a vital part of society.

We ask you to consider the ethical questions at hand. We are not on the picket lines outside MoMA merely to discourage people from entering the building. In fact this is a position that many of us find extraordinarily painful and one that runs counter to every impulse that brought us into our profession in the first place. We feel that we are here to defend that profession's integrity. We are asking the Museum to acknowledge our commitment and our contributions with something other than words. Like any other field that exacts dedication and rigor, museum work is a profession, not an intellectual hobby.

In a recent memo to the Museum staff, Glenn D. Lowry, Director, stated: "We are determined not to let the strike interfere with MoMA's mission." However, every professional staff member on the picket line plays an essential role in shaping and preserving that mission. The quality of the exhibitions, the catalogues, and the education and membership programs at the Museum depends on us from conception to realization. An exhibition on the scale of Making Choices, which just opened, could not have been mounted without the extraordinary contributions of union members working hundreds of hours of overtime without compensation. The level of achievement at MoMA is disproportionate to the salaries and security offered to its professional staff.

A principle is at stake. It is in the best interest of all who champion art to speak out and urge the Museum to address these issues now. We invite you to join our picket line. We ask that you send a letter or fax to Mr. Lowry (212-708-9744) and to Agnes Gund, President (212-708-9415). Most importantly, we appeal to you to help end this strike by encouraging management to return to the table and negotiate in good faith and with due respect for the Museum's professional staff.

Sincerely,
PASTA-MoMA/Local 2110

Among those who contributed to this letter are:
Darsie Alexander, Department of Photography
Sally Berger, Department of Film and Video
Jon Cordova, Office of the Registrar
Julia Corcoran, Department of Writing Services Harris Dew, Department of Communications
Starr Figura, Department of Prints and Illustrated Books
David Frankel, Department of Publications
Laura Hoptman, Department of Drawings
Cary Levine, Department of Painting and Sculpture
Harper Montgomery, Department of Prints and Illustrated Books
Jasmine Moorhead, Department of Publications
Laura Morris, Department of Publications
Clay Stopek, International Program
Jennifer Tobias, Library
Michelle Yun, Department of Painting and Sculpture

PASTA-MoMA Negotiating Committee:
Stefanii Atkins, Office of the Registrar
Michael Cinquina, Office of the Book Buyer
Carina Evangelista, Department of Painting and Sculpture
Daniel Fermon, Library
John Greiner, Visitor Services
Joe Hannan, Department of Writing Services
Michael Regan, Visitor Services
Maida Rosenstein, Local 2110
Chantal Veraart, Library
Phil Wheeler, Northeast Regional UAW
Michael Yard, Department of Sales and Marketing

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