Following a three-week strike, on 26 March, leadership at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass Moca) and its unionised workers (part of United Auto Workers Local 2110) reached a tentative deal. Mass Moca union members voted the same day to ratify the new contract.
“We are very pleased to have reached an agreement with Mass Moca that raises minimum pay rates and improves working conditions,” the museum union’s bargaining committee said in a statement. “We are looking forward to getting back to the jobs we love.”
The agreement implements a new hourly minimum wage of $18 and includes yearly salary increases. According to the union, 58% of unionised staff currently earn $16.25 per hour; they will see an immediate pay bump. The deal also includes a number of changes to the salary scale and substantial pay rises across the board that will be implemented incrementally.
Full-time staff will receive an average pay uptick of 3.5% in each of the next two years. Some workers will also receive increases based on their roles, levels of responsibility and seniority. The overall wage increases across staff range from 3.9% to 14.29%. On average, Mass Moca workers can expect a pay increase of 12.1% by the second year of the contract. Other added benefits include holiday pay and establishing overtime pay for shifts that last more than ten hours.
Before agreeing to the new contract, the union and Mass Moca leadership met for eight bargaining sessions centred solely on employee wages. The new wages go into effect within 30 days, retroactive to 1 January. (A one-day strike in 2022 at Mass Moca also centred on wages.)
“Equity and wage increases for Mass Moca’s staff have never been a matter of if, but a matter of how fast,” the Mass Moca director Kristy Edmunds said in a statement. “The agreement marks another bold precedent that both the union and Mass Moca desired and worked together to achieve… Our goal was shared, but our constraints and communication efforts for getting there differed. In our last bargaining session on Sunday, there was authentic, productive cooperation and clarity, which enabled all parties to agree.”
