{"id":107523,"date":"2025-10-29T18:53:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T18:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/107523\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T18:53:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T18:53:07","slug":"lacma-staff-seeks-to-unionize-citing-low-wages-and-expanded-workloads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/107523\/","title":{"rendered":"LACMA Staff Seeks to Unionize, Citing Low Wages and Expanded Workloads"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWorkers at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA<\/a>), the largest art museum in the western United States and a cornerstone of L.A.\u2019s cultural landscape, announced Wednesday they are aiming to form a union, LACMA United<\/a>, with AFSCME Cultural Workers United District Council 36.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe new labor<\/a> alliance would represent over 300 museum staffers, a workforce composed of curators, educators, guest relations associates and more. As detailed in an open letter announcing its formation, LACMA United urges museum management to \u201cextend beyond rethinking hierarchies of display to include prioritizing the people who bring its mission to life.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMany employees are struggling with wages that have not kept up with the rising cost of living in the sixth-most expensive city in the world. At the same time, employees in virtually every department continue to absorb expanded responsibilities and workloads, often without additional compensation, due to high turnover, limited resources, and positions that have been vacated or frozen,\u201d the letter reads. <\/p>\n

\n\tWorkers have requested voluntary recognition of their union via a show of majority support from the museum\u2019s executive team and board of trustees by Nov. 5.<\/p>\n

\n\tIf that happens, LACMA will follow in the footsteps of other Los Angeles County museums like Museum of Contemporary Art, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and Foundation, and most recently the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and La Brea Tar Pits, all of which granted voluntary recognition to their staff unions, all of whom also organized with AFSCME District Council 36.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe move to unionize comes as LACMA nears the end of a radical redesign over a decade in the making. The $750 million David Geffen Galleries, designed by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, will replace four older buildings to create a single gallery structure spanning Wilshire Boulevard.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe avant-garde design \u2014 which critics have described as resembling everything from a \u201cfreeway overpass\u201d to an \u201camoebic pancake\u201d \u2014 will contain 110,000 square feet of exhibition space, 10,000 square feet less than the spaces it replaces. The museum itself has over 150,000 artifacts and works of art in its collection.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe David Geffen Galleries are scheduled for a grand public opening in April 2026.<\/p>\n

\n\tRead the full letter below.<\/p>\n

\n\tOctober 29, 2025<\/p>\n

To Our Fellow Coworkers, Executive Team, and Board of Trustees,<\/p>\n

We are proud to announce that a supermajority of eligible staff across departments at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art are coming together to form our union,\u00a0LACMA United, in association with AFSCME Cultural Workers United District Council 36.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We celebrate LACMA\u2019s reimagining of the encyclopedic museum, presenting a more interconnected and inclusive narrative of artistic expression. As the museum evolves, we believe that this vision should extend beyond rethinking hierarchies of display to include prioritizing the people who bring its mission to life \u2014 from employees who care for the collections and develop exhibitions to those who maintain the museum\u2019s infrastructures and engage with our audiences every day.<\/p>\n

As we near completion of the new home for our permanent collection, ensuring the stability of our staff is equally crucial to LACMA\u2019s future. Many employees are struggling with wages that have not kept up with the rising cost of living in the sixth-most expensive city in the world. At the same time, employees in virtually every department continue to absorb expanded responsibilities and workloads, often without additional compensation, due to high turnover, limited resources, and positions that have been vacated or frozen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Our vision is one where our shared love of art and service towards the County\u2019s diverse and culturally rich communities is paired with a thriving workforce \u2014 where the progress of the museum is not dependent on precarity for any staff member. To this end, we are forming our union to improve our staff\u2019s well-being through fairer compensation, expanded benefits, and increased transparency in institutional protocols and resources.<\/p>\n

We invite LACMA\u2019s executive team and Board of Trustees to join the growing community of unionized Los Angeles cultural institutions\u2014including the Museum of Contemporary Art and our neighbors, the Academy Museum and Foundation and the Natural History Museum and La Brea Tar Pits\u2014by voluntarily recognizing\u00a0LACMA United. We respectfully request a response by November 5 at\u00a0lacmaunited@gmail.com.<\/p>\n

We look forward to working together to improve our staff\u2019s wellbeing and sense of belonging in a workplace we all already deeply care about.<\/p>\n

In solidarity,<\/p>\n

LACMA United<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Workers at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the largest art museum in the western United States…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,3678,36905,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-107523","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-labor","15":"tag-lacma","16":"tag-new-zealand","17":"tag-newzealand","18":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}