Museum of Fine Arts workers held a one-day strike outside the MFA Wednesday after more than 96% of MFA Union members voted in favor of striking.
The strike comes a year after joining the Local 2110 UAW union and months of negotiations with the MFA. Haley Rayburn, MFA Union negotiator and database marketing associate, described the process as “wild.”
The MFA pointed toward their press statement when asked to comment.
The statement explains that the MFA “supported our employees’ right to organize,” and “have met in good faith at the bargaining table” for the past seven months. The MFA also claimed that the union had not responded to their wage proposal for the past seven weeks.
“The offer that they came to the table with will just not work for us,” Rayburn said.
The MFA proposed no guaranteed salary increase until 2024, and then only a 1.75% raise. Citing 5.4% inflation in the past year alone and operating under a pay freeze, the MFA Union is asking for more from the museum.
“We’re functionally being asked to work for less every year until 2024,” Rayburn said.
Rayburn added one of her co-workers has to live 50 miles from Boston because their MFA wages are too low to afford the cost of living in the city, and that many of her colleagues share concerns regarding childcare and student debt.
Following the unionization in November 2020, the MFA union held elections Feb. 4, Rayburn said. After creating their negotiating committee, the union bargained with the MFA.
Although many strikers greeted the day as a positive action step, Eve Mayberger, MFA Union negotiator and assistant objects conservator, said she felt frustrated.
“This is my first time doing anything like this, so I have nothing to compare it against, but it has been very slow going,” Mayberger said. “[It] was really surprising since we won in such an overwhelming majority, that they’re making us negotiate over every small, little detail.”
After months of negotiation, tensions increased, Rayburn said.
“We’d kind of reached a point where we felt like we needed to make a statement,” Mayberger said.
Statements at the picket line ranged from chanting, “Ancient art, not ancient wages” and “MFA, you’re no good, sign a contract like you should” to signs that referenced artists like Frida Kahlo reading “What would Frida say?”
One striking worker, Eben Haines of the MFA graphic design team, cited that although workers experienced a pay freeze the past two years, MFA Director Matthew Teitelbaum saw a $150,000 raise.
“Clearly, the money is there,” Haines said.
MFA library assistant Jordan Barnes, who led chanting in the picket line with a megaphone at the start of the strike, described paying workers fairly as an investment for the museum.
“Just like acquiring a new object for the collection, investing in the staff makes the museum reach its goals and have its mission,” Barnes said. “It’s just as important.”
The strike saw support from the Guerilla Girls, Northeastern University Young Democratic Socialists of America and a range of other community members.
“This museum is so important to me and my life,” MFA volunteer Ruth Sherman said. “It has become my second home since I retired.”
Sherman said she was moved to support the MFA union strike after working with staff members for the past 13 years. She describes the staffers as “some of the nicest people I’ve ever worked with.”
“I’m glad I came because too many times in my 77 years I have said I support somebody or support some issue and didn’t make a physical statement,” Sherman said.
Looking forward, the MFA union hopes that the strike will embarrass the museum and force the MFA to take them more seriously.
“This could be the first of other actions, depending on how the next few months unravel,” Mayberger said.
