Unionbusting emails from SAM CEO and Union Response
Update from week of 11-20-24
Dear SAM VSO Union Supporters
This week, CEO Scott Stulen emailed union leadership and all SAM staff regarding union members’ rejection of the museum's last best and final offer. It is an intimidating email, where Stulen (on behalf of the board of trustees) continues to use this strategy that pretends the museum doesn’t even really care if we go on strike. Below, we provide a lot of details, fact-checking, etc, but most importantly we’d like you to ponder a question yourself.
Why, if SAM really doesn’t care if we strike, would they send this email filled with verifiable falsehoods attempting to discourage a strike?
Or, put more simply, SAM doth protest too much.
Email From Scott Stulen (SAM CEO) to all SAM staff on Nov. 21st
Dear SAM staff,
On Tuesday, SAM learned that the VSO Union, which represents museum security officers, rejected the comprehensive proposal we put forward on October 31.
We are disappointed with this outcome. We put forward a strong package that compensates union members at market-leading rates and reflects our values as a non-profit institution.
During the bargaining process, SAM has meaningfully increased our compensation offer three times, on 10/30/23, 2/20/24 and 10/16/24, ultimately resulting in an overall wage increase of more than 18 percent over the life of the contract.
The contract the union has rejected also includes 43 tentative agreements on important benefits and contract elements that address matters unique to the security officers at SAM, including:
A healthy third shift differential
Annual shoe stipend
Uniform needs and support
Paid time for orienting new employees
Paid at-rate training time
Paid parking for our third shift staff
The comprehensive proposal we put forward on October 31 was SAM’s last, best and final offer—meaning it reflects the best benefits we can offer. We simply cannot do more.
In response to these increases offered by the museum, the VSO Union has not adjusted its bargaining position or sought to reach any compromise. These surface bargaining tactics by the union have occurred alongside a disregard for the federal mediators, brought in at the union’s request, to help advance negotiations.
Due to the union’s tactics, unwillingness to appropriately engage in the mediation process, and its inequitable demand that we offer more benefits to union members than other employees, we regret that we do not see a path to a mutually agreeable contract. We have no choice but to step back from the bargaining table at this time.
Last month, before bringing SAM’s last, best and final offer to its membership for a vote, union leadership informed SAM of its intent to strike if we do not reach an agreement by November 29. We respect their right to engage in lawful union activity, including a strike. We have also made it clear that a strike will not change the terms of our proposal.
This package will remain on the table for ratification until December 20. After that date, we can no longer guarantee all wage increases included in the current proposal and will adjust accordingly.
We honor the collective bargaining process and respect all employees’ rights to advocate for a contract as a union. We are proud of our offer and proud of the people represented by the VSO Union. We are ready to implement the strong benefits included in the proposal. Now, the ball is in their court.
Sincerely,
Scott
SCOTT STULEN (he/him)
Illsley Ball Nordstrom Director and CEO
Union Response:
FACT CHECKING
We would like to address several inaccuracies in Stulen's email. In the spirit of open conversation and transparency, we also ask you to keep an eye for our upcoming update, coming later today, about our last rally during the opening events of the new Thaddeus Mosley & Alexander Calder show, where we will also provided a great conversation starter for our coworkers at SAM, by disclosing the already existing inequity between museum departments.
In Stulen's email, he claims: "As we have shared with you before, this package includes the best benefits the museum can offer."
We ask the museum to substantiate this claim.
This is certainly the most intimidating part of Stulen’s all-staff email.
Why would the VSOs go on strike, if there is no more money?
The bargaining team would feel more concerned about this, if it has not been said in the bargaining room many times, followed by serious movement at the bargaining table from VSO actions. Don’t make us tap the sign:
Each step along this chart, SAM has said the same exact thing: “We can’t do more”. Each time, after VSOs take action, it has been proven false. Will this time be different? We doubt it, but we’re going to check. We are making a request for information for the museum’s financials, to prove that they cannot afford it. If an employer “pleads poverty” they are required to turn over all financial information. We don’t expect they will deliver, but if on the off-chance they do, that would require some serious consideration from the union over whether a strike would be effective.
Each time we have done this dance in bargaining, the museum’s responses suddenly fall back on vague terminology, “preference”, and “market rates” “maintaining infrastructure” to avoid being legally required to provide concrete proof of financial hardship. Are they willing to share concrete information now? The museum's lawyer has consistently stated,
(Read more here:
Is this still the case? If not, what does "We simply cannot do more" actually mean? We will see if the museum provides the information to back it up, or if these are simply more unionbusting manipulation.
Stulen also states: “The union has not adjusted its bargaining position or sought to reach a compromise.”
We ask the museum to substantiate this claim,
This accusation is verifiably false. Over the past 27 months of bargaining, the union has adjusted its bargaining positions in an effort to accommodate the museum’s stances and reach an agreement. All while the museum has only agreed to clauses with no or negligible costs and NEVER presented an offer beyond the status quo regarding seniority, healthcare, or retirement. Examples of these efforts by the union include giving up on expanding health-care coverage to part-time staff, the dropping of an expanded sexual harassment policy after the museum refused to bargain on this non-financial issue twice, reducing multiple times before eventually giving up on our ask that VSOs who perform work with a higher pay rate (such as Lead or Dispatch) for part of their shift get appropriately compensated for their time, and reducing our retirement ask to just a commitment to reverse Covid-era cuts to our 403(b)s.
On the other side, on every single issue except wages (which still are far below the cost of living in Seattle) the museum's first offer was its last best and final offer regarding WaSHR, they just waited 27 months to tell us..
For months, the museum has pretended to negotiate with us, countering every proposal concerning seniority, retirement, or healthcare with the same tired offers. If they genuinely intended to reach an agreement, they should have clearly communicated that they were unwilling to make an offer which seriously addresses these priorities of our unit, rather than wasting 27 months of our time acting as if they were open to hearing and discussing new proposals. This is unionbusting, as the hope for the board of trustees was that the union movement would “simply pass”, when in reality it has grown stronger. As we have explained before, this behavior is recognized by Museums Moving Forward as a unionbusting tactic.
Stulen goes on to cite the union’s “disregard for the federal mediators”
We ask the museum to substantiate this claim.
Specifically we would like to ask Stulen to provide a single example of this disregard for the federal mediators.
As far as we know the museum has not filed a single unfair labor practice charge and the mediator has never stated we disregarded them. It would be important for these things to be communicated to the union, as this is the first we are hearing of it.
Finally, CEO Stulen cites an “Inequitable demand that we offer more benefits to union members.”
This slanderous and cynical use of equity, as a way to pay all departments less is insulting to museum employees' intelligence. Under the terms by which the SAM VSO Union gained recognition by the NLRB, we are only authorized to negotiate better conditions on behalf of the guards. The “scope” of the contract cannot dictate conditions for those outside our bargaining unit, as both sides understand and have stated in the room. We’ve actually tried to negotiate at times for things that would directly benefit the rest of the museum, and who shut us down? The museum.
What the Union team does consistently objected to is using our independence to shackle our unit to the status quo. It’s never been our position that the Museum could not or should not also, say, restore 403(b) employer matching for non-security employees or update its sexual harassment policies or increase the sick time accrual rate museum-wide. And while it’s not our right to bargain for the whole museum, it’s always been our fervent hope and goal that by bettering conditions for our department we will raise the standard by which SAM treats all of its workers. We have succeeding in improving many things for the entire museum through our bargaining, despite SAM’s resistance.
This statement from Stulen misrepresents the purpose of a collective bargaining agreement. The primary objective of such an agreement is to establish terms that cater specifically to the bargaining unit it represents. Security personnel have different roles compared to other staff at the museum, so it is reasonable for our contract to negotiate benefits and working conditions that pertain only to our group needs. It is also important to note that by being organized, VSOs have “additional” benefits the rest of the museum doesn’t already agreed to in the contract. These include Weingarten Rights (the right to have a representative with you during disciplinary/investigatory meetings) guaranteed by federal labor law. The museum has already agreed to contract clauses which grant specific benefits to Security that are not available to other departments, like a grievance procedure which must be followed if the contract is violated, a Labor-Management Committee (LMC) to regularly communicate face-to-face with management, and a $75 annual shoe stipend to prepare our members with proper equipment for the constant standing and walking involved in gallery security. It is arbitrary for the museum to label certain benefits as “inequitable” based solely on its anti-union agenda.
Moreover, during the initial stages of our unionization process, the museum prevented security from affiliating with a larger union, IUPAT 116, or forming a union with the broader museum workforce, by denying us voluntary recognition, and now it is unfairly blaming us for the consequences of that decision.
As former HR director Kathleen Maki stated in an email to all staff:
“We did not anticipate that a Painters’ Union would seek to represent SAM’s VSOs. Federal labor law does not allow a union to be certified as a representative of security workers if that union also represents non-security workers.”
In a later “Communication to VSOs”, Maki elaborated SAM’s stance:
“Voluntary recognition avoids a secret ballot election conducted by the NLRB. As we shared early on, our goal is for a fair and open process to occur so each VSO can decide, without intimidation or coercion, whether they wish to be represented by a union. “
Union organizers spent weeks urging the museum to voluntarily recognize the union, which is completely legal and democratic as it still requires a majority of workers, and would have allowed down the road for a combined union with employees from multiple departments. Our requests were repeatedly denied, and the concept of voluntary recognition was implied to be intimidating/coercive despite the fact that SAM contracts with Allied Universal for security at OSP, who are represented by SEIU Local Six (a “mixed-guard union”). This derisive rhetoric had a verifiable chilling effect on union organizing in other departments who would have sought to join with us. We ask you all to consider the question, why would the museum refuse to allow its employees down a path to all being represented by one union?
As a result of SAM’s choice to block our affiliation, the SAM VSO Union became an independent union representing only security employees, as we felt we had no other viable option.
To circle back to last night’s email, we urge CEO Stulen and others not to share an inaccurate portrayal of the bargaining process. Over the last 27 months of contract negotiations, members of the bargaining team and other VSOs willing to devote their time and energy to the bargaining process have experienced the Museum's surface bargaining tactics, deceptive rhetoric, misrepresentations of our job responsibilities / lived experiences, aggressive behavior, stonewalling, and unprofessional conduct firsthand. For those new to the process, check this blog post for a good example. We still believe that a fair contract is within reach and that a compromise between our positions is possible; we simply ask everyone paying lip service to the belief that unions serve the crucial interests of workers to consider who benefits from the narrative being woven here.
In the Union’s opinion, this falsehood-ridden email reflects a panicked board of trustees and specifically, a panicked Jon Shirley. The VSOs just had a successful rally which exposed the way Shirley has used the museum to his personal benefit for decades. VSOs made signs to this effect:
and VSOs in the galleries wore “Shirley <3s Scabs” buttons on the opening day of his pet project: Thaddeus Mosley and Alexander Calder. With this exhibit, and the previous Calder exhibit, Jon Shirley utilizes the museum’s real estate to show his personal Calder collection to his rich friends over and over again. Even the family of Thaddeus Mosley saw the righteousness of the VSOs’ cause and donated to our strike fund. As the VSOs undertake strike action, the larger public and media will become immediately more aware of Shirley and the board of trustees’ obstruction of working people improving their lives. We believe this terrifies them.
While the VSO union has certainly suffered from the unionbusting attacks the board of trustees have waged over the years, the VSOs still have something the board of trustees never will. The VSOs have people power, and the ability to expose the truth and be transparent. If he doesn’t already, we believe Jon Shirley will soon want the attention on him to stop, and the VSOs are happy to oblige as soon as we get a fair contract.