On April 16th, SAM VSO Union followed up with the Board of Trustees—not a single member having responded—following a nearly two-month wait for an answer to our letters.
Before detailing the action from yesterday, it is important to review everything our Union has attempted before this, to document the careful and gradually increasing actions, with hopes of prompting SAM to provide the VSOs a fair contract without having to get here.
A timeline of union events thus far:
2018 - VSOs attempted to address departmental issues through an official SAM-sponsored “VSO Advisory Committee.” After two years, a pandemic hiatus, and a three-meeting resurgence, the committee came to a fizzling end in 2021. The committee was generally viewed as ineffective by members and the department at large, as the VSOs experienced stonewalling in response to almost all committee demands from department management.
2018 - Simultaneously, numerous VSOs went to HR and museum management about a variety of departmental management issues, including museum-wide systemic issues (e.g. advancement for VSOs within the museum). We attempted to find solutions through the official SAM systems that were in place for feedback. Sadly, VSOs needs went underaddressed.
2020 - SAM halted all retirement benefits for all staff at the outset of the pandemic in addition to decreasing top staff (CEO, CFO, etc.) salary by 10%. However, after receiving $4,860,000 in PPP loans and laying off 76 staff members, the museum restored salaries for its leadership and executives. Both loans were forgiven (meaning the museum kept the $4.8 million). There was no restoration of retirement benefits for frontline staff until May 31st, 2021, the day SAM VSO Union became recognized by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Even then, the museum restored only a partial retirement benefit for staff, and retirement has never been fully restored.
2021 - With official museum channels exhausted and material conditions of employment getting consistently worse, the VSOs went for it and unionized. After winning the union vote with over 90% departmental support, the VSOs expected management to approach the table fairly and be mutually dedicated to getting a fair contract at reasonable speed.
2022 - Instead, the museum chose a bargaining strategy of dragging their feet and being aggressive and abusive with employees’ who attended bargaining sessions (e.g. weaponizing personal, identity, and family information– which was reported to HR and Jeff Draeger, who found no misconduct). The VSOs responded by gathering a petition with over 75% of VSOs publicly supporting the need for WaSHR benefits: Wage, Seniority pay, Health insurance expansion, and Retirement restoration and improvement.
2023 - The museum responded to the petition months later with an insultingly lowball offer that proposed a raise of 50 cents. Around September this year, VSOs began monthly informational picketing (and rallies!) to raise public awareness of the museum’s refusal to offer a fair contract that covers the cost of living in Seattle.
January 2024 - With the pickets alone, the museum continued to refuse a substantive offer. So the VSOs marched on Jeff Draeger demanding he commit to advocating on the VSOs behalf in support of increased wages and benefits to the SAM Board of Trustees. Draeger refused.
February 2024 - With no route to speak to the Board of Trustees through official channels, SAM VSO Union went to the Board directly, sending over 50 letters and emails to each individual member of the Board.
April 2024 - The National Labor Relations Board sided with the SAM VSO Union over the unfair labor practice charge we filed. The NLRB ordered the museum to bargain the handbook they had previously refused our union’s multiple requests to bargain. Our Union even warned the museum that we believed the museum was committing an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP), and SAM’s team refused to address it until the NLRB forced them to with their decision (sidenote: in-depth explanation of this ULP soon to come). Undergoing this ULP process (due to SAM's teams stubbornness) was yet another delay in the ongoing series of museum actions that have dragged the contract fight out to 20 months.
April 16, 2024 (yesterday) - After receiving 2 months of radio-silence from the Board regarding our direct letter to them about our need for WaSHR and with the museum’s approach in the bargaining process thus far, the VSOs were left with no choice. To attempt to continue our righteous fight for a fair contract, our Union had to go in person to the museum’s decision-makers, the Board of Trustees, and ask if they will meet with the VSOs.
APRIL 16th LABOR ACTION
As they arrived for their spring retreat at the Seattle Asian Art Museum, the members of the SAM Board of Trustees were greeted by their employees, the VSOs, asking whether they would meet with us, and support our right to a fair contract that provides increased wages and benefits needed to survive in Seattle. They were also greeted by music, art, and fun 90s-themed signs:
We also handed out these flyers to the board members:
We concluded the afternoon with a special song prepared for the Board, performed from behind SAAM towards the windows of the Alvord where the Board was meeting:
Watch the performance here on youtube:
SAM LEADERSHIP MISSES THE POINT
As the contract battle drags on due to SAM leadership’s delaying tactics (20 months now), one has to ask: how long does SAM leadership plan to drag this out? How much public shame will management choose to unnecessarily bring onto the museum, when (we know, they have said it in writing) they have enough money to meet every single VSO Union demand?1
The VSOs know that in the long-term, securing a fair contract, which guarantees loyal employees the ability to survive in the city of the museum’s namesake, is the best thing for the long-term health of the museum. SAM leadership continues pursuing this shortsighted, cost-saving strategy of underpaying employees for the time being, but it doesn’t take much to recognize that this undervaluing of employees will harm the institution more than anything in the long-term. Grossly underpaying employees until they cannot live in Seattle anymore, and thus attracting a more and more desperate (and constant turn-over) workforce will not provide the customer service experience, art history knowledge, and the love for the institution that the VSOs have. No amount of gallery expansion will offset the damage done by years of undervaluing the workers who allow the galleries to be visited at all.
Join us on May 2nd, as we hold an informational picket demanding a fair contract from the Seattle Art Museum
-SAM VSO Union Bargaining Team
Email the union at samvsounion@gmail.com
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1 Via email from SAM in December 2023
“The Employer has never asserted, nor will it ever assert, either a present inability to pay, or a prospective inability to pay during the life of the contract being negotiated."
-Lead SAM Negotiator