Unionized Staff at Three Major NYC Museums Vote to Strike

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. Unionized employees of the Brooklyn Museum, the American Folk Art Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, all in New York, voted overwhelmingly to strike if they do not receive fair contract offers. Local 2110 UAW, which represents organized staff at all three institutions, announced the vote results on September 15. Unionized workers at the three museums are seeking to raise the minimum pay rate, which is currently well below the annual $71,000 that a single adult living alone in New York would need to survive, according to the 2025 NYC True Cost of Living Measure Annual Report. “It’s not that we want to strike,” said union chair Derrick Charles, a membership associate at the Whitney, in a statement. “We’d rather be working and doing our jobs but our wages are untenable for making ends meet in New York City.” Charles has held his front-facing role, selling tickets in the museum lobby, since 2018. He currently makes $24 an hour—$10 less than the living wage in New York City. Wage gaps at US museums have long been a bone of contention, with workers on the front lines often receiving the lowest remuneration and experiencing job precarity. In sharp contrast, museum leaders are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars: In fiscal year 2024–25, Brooklyn Museum director Anne Pasternak’s salary was roughly $700,000, while AFAM director Jason T. Busch took home about $330,000. Whitney director Scott Rothkopf received nearly a million dollars. No date has been set for the action, as union reps are continuing to negotiate with management. All three museums have major exhibitions opening in early October; whether these are imperiled remains to be seen.