Strike at New York’s Hispanic Society enters sixth week, with ‘no movement’ in negotiations

Staff on the Hispanic Society Museum and Library in New York Metropolis’s Washington Heights neighbourhood have been on strike since late March. The strike started after a 12 months of failed negotiations between the museum’s administration and unionised staff. In keeping with the members of the union, who’re represented by the native United Auto Staff (UAW) 2110, there was no progress since early April.

“We’ve had no contact with them because the starting of week two, once we had a nine-hour negotiating session,” says John O’Neill, a curator on the Hispanic Society and member of the bargaining committee. “That was at first of week two. So primarily, issues are the place they’re, the place they had been, and there’s been no no motion on their half.”

Regardless of the breakdown in negotiations, staff have maintained a picket line outdoors the museum, along with different actions. On 26 April, the union picketed outdoors the house of Philippe de Montebello, the chairman of the Hispanic Society’s Board and former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork. They’ve additionally acquired the help of a number of elected officers, together with New York Metropolis council members Members Carmen De La Rosa and Shaun Abreu. On 28 April, the Society for Iberian World Artwork launched an open letter addressing the present state of affairs on the Hispanic Society and calling for a decision.

The Hispanic Society homes one of many largest collections of Latin American, Spanish and Portuguese artwork and literature on the earth. Its museum constructing has been closed for renovations since 2017. The museum was anticipated to reopen final month, however the strike and building delays have pushed that reopening again indefinitely.

“The Hispanic Society—a beloved establishment—has been closed lengthy sufficient, failing its mission to interact with a big viewers, beginning with its local people,” a museum spokesperson mentioned in an announcement to The Artwork Newspaper. “Lately, many efforts have been made to vary what was perceived as an insular, unwelcoming angle. Nevertheless, it’s honest to acknowledge that this new path encountered some resistance from a number of longtime employees members.”

Staff on the establishment fashioned a union in 2021. The UAW Native 2110 additionally represents staff of museums and cultural establishments throughout the Northeast together with the Museum of Fantastic Arts, Boston, the Jewish Museum, the Museum of Trendy Artwork, the Whitney Museum of American Artwork, and the Guggenheim Museum.

The Hispanic Society strike is now the longest strike in latest historical past within the US tradition and heritage sector. Final autumn, staff on the Philadelphia Museum of Artwork went on strike for 19 days, finally main the employees and museum directors to conform to a brand new contract.

Of the deadlock on the Hispanic Society, UAW Native 2110’s director of organising Maida Rosenstein says that “sadly, there are some individuals within the solid of characters [there] who simply appear very oblivious to what they’ve within the employees” she provides, “These are long-term professionals who made a weighty choice to organise as a result of the board lower off their pension plan, and so they felt they needed to transfer ahead. What’s at stake right here is individuals’s well being advantages.”