NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art will close an extra day a week after striking workers rejected the latest offer.
The museum will close Monday "to allow managers covering shifts during this period to rest," according to an update on the museum's website. The museum is closed on Tuesdays normally and beginning next week, will also close on Wednesdays through April.
The latest offer rejected by union members on Wednesday, according to the museum, was a minimum hourly wage of $17.25, or 3.5 percent salary increase, or equity increases ranging from 3.9 percent to 14.29 percent and retroactive to Jan 1, 2024. An additional 3 percent "base building" increase was proffered for the following year to eliminate the need for more talks in six months.
Local 2110 says increasing wages for its 125 members will come to $150,000 — MoCA countered with one-time lump sum of $150,000 for the UAW to determine the size and structure of each payment and its recipients.
"We are disappointed in the outcome of the vote, and indeed, that the union encouraged employees to vote NO rather than remaining neutral to allow staff to vote their conscience," the museum stated. "The strike continues and we will be confirming a date soon to return to the bargaining table."
The strikers have been picketing outside the museum, accompanied by a blowup "Scabby the Rat," during museum hours and often on Tuesday. The latest offer came during talks that resumed over the weekend.
Technical, Office and Professional (TOP) Union, Local 2110, part of the United Auto Workers, represents more than 3,000 employees in the education, creative, publishing and law fields.
MoCA hourly workers joined the local in 2021 and held a one-day strike back in 2022 over wages. Organizing at museums and other nonprofit "creative economy" institutions has been on the upswing following the pandemic, rising prices and stagnant wages. It also included more benefits and a fund for prefessional development.
The Guggenheim Museum also settled with its union last year for a total wage increase of 12 percent through December 2025.
UAW members at the Brooklyn Museum ratified their first contract last fall that guaranteed a more than 23 percent wage increase over the next 3.5 years.
With staff out on the picket line, Mass MoCA has postponed two shows scheduled for this weekend until May. Laurie Anderson's "To the Moon" and "Chalkroom VR" experiences have been closed.
