News | Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh City Paper: Another group of Pittsburgh professionals is moving towards unionization by seeking to join the United Steelworkers.
Yesterday, United Museum Workers, a group of Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh staff, announced that they filed for a union election to join the United Steelworkers (USW).
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I was pretty confused when reading that the museum employees were filing to join the United Steelworkers Union, but looking at the USW website, it seems like a solid choice. Forming your own union seems like an arduous process, and USW is already the largest union in North America, and represents workers across a ton of industries – not just industrial or manufacturing workplaces like their name might suggest. Seeing how vast of a scope USW has me thinking about the SAG-AFTRA and AEA dispute that is all over arts news right now. It’s crappy that SAG seems to be offering contracts with lower wages to get AEA members to take them, and its also crappy that AEA jurisdictional reach is very unclear (although, with my current knowledge on the subject, I do side with AEA, because this is a pandemic and I think jurisdiction should be loosened to let the people work, but that's a topic for a different comment). Is it possible for there just to be one big performers union? If there was concern about one or the other subset of performers being prioritized, wouldn't merging the unions but keeping the same levels of staff eliminate that? I don’t know if that's reasonable, but it feels doable in my gut.
"The founder of our museums, Andrew Carnegie, made his fortunes on the backs of thousands of workers who labored for low pay in extremely hazardous conditions. We intend to honor this legacy by voting for union representation." This is somewhat of a strange quote to end an article about unionization on. Carnegie’s legacy has nothing to do with unions and treating workers fairly. If anything they are disgracing the Carnegie name by starting a union, which is probably a good thing hahaha. That aside, I do think that the museum workers starting a union could be very helpful for them as now they can help force better working conditions and manageable hours. Unions that I have worked with have always helped their members be able to get what they need and protect the worker’s rights and job if they are put in an uncomfortable situation. Unions are not always just for collective bargaining but offer workers an extra layer of protection from things like sexual assault and workplace violance. I am glad that the museum workers were able to unionize.
Reading that first line really caught me off guard…why would a bunch of museum employees join the United Steelworkers? It did not make sense to me that a group of “scientists, educators, art handlers, gift shop clerks, and other staff members” would want to partake in an industrial union. As I read on, the picture started to get clearer. With the USW taking local white collar jobs, grad students, and Carnegie Library personnel, it began to make sense as to why other Carnegie sponsored facilities’ staff would choose them. I think that unions as a whole are a great opportunity for workers to ensure they are being compensated fairly always so the more the merrier. It does surprise me though that there is not a specific union for science, history, and art museum employees around the nation. I am curious as to if the museum staff in other major cities are unionized and if so, who they are affiliated with.
I honestly don’t know how to react to this news. I normally am full on supporting this and for the right of people to unionize but in this climate of anti-union, I am not sure how to respond. I think that it is great that these workers are coming together to do this but are they doing it for the right cause? Also, if they are looking for job protection, they may be barking up the wrong tree. It’s going to take months, maybe even a year before a contract can be negotiated and in place and full union protections happen. What about the here and now? What is protecting these workers from being furloughed or terminated now? I have seen unions destroy the lives of its members because union leadership always wants more for less. Unions were meant to protect hard working people from bad bosses. Now unions protect bad cops and bad teachers. I think before we have anymore people forming a new CBU, there needs to be a come to (insert deity here) moment. What do you really want and why is this path the only way?
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