Whitney Museum union ratifies contract on the eve of a strike: picketing of the Lichtenstein retrospective is averted

The strike was averted at the last minute. On Sunday evening, October 4, the unionised employees of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York ratified the new collective agreement with the museum’s management, averting the strike that had been announced to begin today, October 5, as Hyperallergic reports.

The employees, organised in UAW Local 2110, were ready to picket outside the museum throughout the week of press, VIP and member previews of the major Roy Lichtenstein retrospective “Like New,” which opens to the public on October 11. A strike at this moment would have hit one of the most important exhibitions of the autumn in New York.

The new contract provides for pay rises of at least 14.75 per cent for all employees over four years, as well as a new pay floor of $26 an hour for visitor experience, membership and retail staff. It also includes longevity bonuses for employees with a decade or more of service, up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave, increased bereavement leave and strengthened health and safety measures, Hyperallergic writes, citing a UAW Local 2110 press statement.

“Solidarity at all levels of the union made a big difference in the end. The museum knew we were serious about the strike and in these last days we made a lot of progress,” said Erika Wentworth, who works in the museum’s graphic design department.

The Whitney union was one of four UAW Local 2110 units at New York museums that voted to strike this year. The unions of the Brooklyn Museum, the American Folk Art Museum and the Guggenheim secured their contracts with their institutions in recent days, without needing to set a strike deadline. The Whitney’s first collective agreement, ratified in 2023, had raised the minimum wage from $17 to $24 an hour and expired in June this year; in the new talks the union was seeking a base annual salary of about $71,000 for full-time employees, a figure that, according to a City Hall report, represents the minimum for a single adult to live sustainably in New York.