The Museum of Superb Arts (MFA) Boston introduced this week that it’s going to lay off greater than 30 staff, almost half of whom maintain unionised positions. The announcement was made on 27 January, with the union representing most of the employees, United Auto Staff Native 2110 (UAW), claiming they got simply someday’s discover.
In line with WBUR, in an e mail despatched to staff, the MFA acknowledged that the museum is “in an unsustainable deficit that now we have dedicated to resolve”. The e-mail continued: “Sadly, now we have decided that in an effort to transfer towards monetary sustainability, we might want to implement a restructuring that can end in a discount in our workforce.”
The museum presently employs round 520 workers members, and the 33 job cuts quantity to round 6.3% of its complete workforce. The layoffs take impact on 30 January.
This marks the second spherical of layoffs on the MFA in six years. The primary occurred in 2020 on the top of the Covid-19 pandemic, when 56 staff took early retirement and 57 further workers members had been laid off. At the moment, then-director Matthew Teitelbaum additionally took a 30% pay minimize.
In line with UAW Native 2110, 16 of the 33 positions being eradicated are union roles. “The union solely discovered concerning the layoffs on the MFA late within the day yesterday,” an Instagram put up by the MFA union states. “The museum solely simply notified us about which members of our union are particularly on the layoff checklist.”
“We’ve requested the museum to supply detailed details about what actions may have been taken to keep away from this drastic step,” the assertion continued. “We anticipate to fulfill and discount with the museum over this matter to see if there are methods to avert layoffs and retain the office range that’s the power of our establishment.”
Unionised employees on the MFA fought to safe their first contract in 2022, following almost two years of bargaining and a one-day strike.
“In an effort to deal with a rising structural deficit and higher serve our audiences, we’re transferring ahead with a complete plan to realign our organisation and create a sustainable enterprise mannequin,” a spokesperson for the MFA instructed The Artwork Newspaper in an announcement. “Sadly, this plan consists of the painful however essential step of implementing a workforce discount that requires the elimination of 6.3% of complete lively staff. Management got here to this choice solely after cautious consideration and in depth evaluation.”
The spokesperson added: “It’s a unhappy second for the MFA and one we face with a heavy coronary heart. We’re deeply grateful to our departing workers for his or her years of dedication and lots of contributions. Transferring ahead, a brand new organisational construction will probably be in place that centres customer expertise and neighborhood engagement, ensures care of our assortment and maximises efficiencies throughout the museum. Modifications embrace a brand new division that brings collectively just about all visitor-facing workers and prioritises the viewers expertise, together with a brand new concentrate on institutional technique. These initiatives will assist set the MFA firmly on a path to turning into a extra secure and resilient establishment—one that’s higher positioned to ship on our mission.”
Many US museums have made vital layoffs over the previous six years, particularly on the top of the pandemic-era closures, but in addition extra not too long ago as operational prices have risen quickly and humanities funding has change into extra scarce. A report final yr by the American Alliance of Museums discovered that greater than 50% of US museums had been nonetheless seeing decrease customer numbers than in 2019.
Earlier this month, workers on the Telfair Museums in Savannah, Georgia, had been notified in a Zoom assembly that 15% of their workforce could be minimize. Final yr, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York laid off 20 staff following a equally compressed timeline and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Artwork in Los Angeles additionally moved to put off 22 staff. The Brooklyn Museum launched a comparable measure, citing income losses, although these layoffs had been in the end paused following strain from the UAW.
