During the VIP opening of the Whitney Biennial 2022 edition, the Whitney workers staged a protest for better rights.
On the night of the opening, when the temperature was below freezing, about three dozen Whitney Museum workers stood outside the venue. Many of them held placards with messages like “[] want fair wages.” The objective of the protest was to draw attention to the stalled negotiations between workers and the museum.
The story began in August 2021, when Whitney workers voted to form a union and affiliate themselves with TOPUL 2110 UAW, a group that also represented other museums. Negotiations began in November between the union, which now represented around 200 workers, and the museum. The main demands included better compensation, establishing a salary floor, and more health benefits. However, the negotiations stalled as the museum allegedly stopped responding.
Zoe Tippl, the exhibition coordinator at the museum and one of the members of the union involved in the negotiations, said: “They haven’t said a word on any of our wage and economic proposals, anything about benefits and especially proposals concerning temporary staff.” She also added that the 2022 Biennial was only possible due to their hard work and dedication, even though they were “overworked and underpaid”.
More allegations involved having frontline positions like gallery attendants labelled as ‘part-time services’, which disqualified those workers from receiving full employment benefits. The union also revealed that since the negotiations began in November, Whitney leadership have not met them even once – only the HR reps and third-party attorneys were present.
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Meanwhile, Whitney published the following statement after the protest: “The Whitney enjoys a longstanding and productive working relationship with the 4 other unions that have been established at the Museum. The Whitney voluntarily welcomed Local 2110 last summer and has been negotiating with them in good faith since then. We’ve already made progress on a number of points. We look forward to continuing our discussions at our regularly scheduled meeting with them next week.”
