Museum of Fine Arts employees voted overwhelmingly Nov. 20 to unionize, granting workers new collective bargaining abilities with the institution.
MFA employees are eligible to join the United Auto Workers Local 2110, which represents a number of museum employees including those at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
“Of the votes counted, approximately 90% voted yes for our MFA Union,” the union wrote in a Nov. 20 Facebook post. “We are ecstatic and so incredibly grateful for all of the support we’ve received through this process.”
Matthew Teitelbaum, director of the MFA, wrote in a statement that the museum fully endorses its employees’ choice to join the union and is committed to working with them moving forward.
The museum was glad the vote went “smoothly and fairly,” he wrote.
“Despite the challenges we face in the current environment, we continue to believe the MFA has made progress toward our mission and goals,” Teitelbaum wrote, “and we believe that we are on the right path to achieve new possibilities together with our employees and the community.”
MFA employees — from information technology staff to curators — are crucial to the museum’s success, according to the union’s mission statement.
“As union members, we are all joining this collective to gain agency and transparency around the matters that impact our daily work lives and livelihood,” the mission statement reads.
The union will bargain for labor justice — which the union states is linked to racial justice — as well as for equity in wages and hiring, according to the mission statement.
“It will take our collective voices raised in unison to create a just workplace for all,” the statement reads. “We believe that a union can help achieve this in a way that is respectful, caring, and constructive, and can be a positive aspect of museum life.”
MFA patron Lisa Smith, 51, of Manchester, Conn. said she understands the museum employees’ desire to form a union.
“If it’s a question of them feeling as though they’re being treated unfairly, and if management is not willing to listen to their concerns,” Smith said, “if they want to unionize, it’s within their rights to do so.”
Smith, who traveled to Boston to visit the MFA’s Jean-Michel Basquiat display, said the same number of visitors will patronize the museum, regardless of the unionization.
“People still want to enjoy their art and they still want to visit,” Smith said. “Especially during a pandemic, when you need some sort of uplift, people will still come, I think, regardless of whatever’s going on between the workers and management.”
Derek Webb, 18, of Roxbury lives near the MFA. He said workers’ rights are important, and that unions can have positive impacts on workers and the surrounding community.
Webb said, however, he can foresee pushback from the museum against the union.
“It’s money they’re losing at the end of the day,” Webb said, “if the worker gets it.”
