Museum security workers strike against billionaire bosses

Seattle — About 70 service officers struck the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) on Nov. 29, “Black Friday,” hitting the museum’s rich bosses. The Visiting Service Officers Union (VSO), an independent union, put up a strong picket line on the strike’s opening day. Not only did the strikers have a militant picket line with chants, a sound system and colorful signs , they had informational leaflets, chant sheets, buttons and other union swag, along with food and beverages. The union had a giant inflatable rat, representing the museum’s ruling-class bosses and their union-busting private security contractor working inside the museum.

The security officers are actually more like guides, offering help to visitors while providing security. They are demanding higher wages — at least a $25 an hour starting wage. Workers want increased health care benefits, a seniority system, an agency shop (requiring guards to either pay union dues or pay a service fee to the union) and a pension, or at least a 401(k) plan, as many of them are long-term workers.

SAM’s top management took away all the museum workers’ pensions a few years ago. The VSO leaflet says: “As the cost of living in Seattle rises, museum jobs that were once fulfilling, have become essential positions where workers struggle to survive.”

The Seattle museum has three big locations: the main downtown museum where the opening picket and rally were  held on Nov. 29, the Asian Art Museum on Capitol Hill and the Olympic Sculpture Park.

The SAM VSO Union is up against an art museum with $360 million in assets. Strikers say SAM is not only controlled by a board of trustees, but by rich benefactors such as John Shirley. Shirley, a former trustee and benefactor, is a multibillionaire and former president of Microsoft. He, along with others, is responsible for the anti-union austerity imposed on the workers who have been bargaining for over two years without a contract.

The museum workers originally formed a collective, SAM Workers, in 2021. A private security contractor was hired to police the SAM outdoor plaza where some houseless people slept and lived. When this contractor was involved in brutal attacks against the people outdoors, SAM workers called out management with an online petition against SAM’s mistreatment of the houseless. The collective also tried to engage with management on other issues.

SAM workers, through continued organizing, won raises of over $3 an hour in December 2021. They signed union cards in January 2022 and attempted to join the Painters Union (IUPAT Local 116) then. But they were prevented from joining IUPAT by a National Labor Relations Board rule that says that security and non-security workers can’t join the same union together.

Undeterred, the SAM VSO workers formed an independent union, actively organizing against management. They have quite a story to tell.

Donations to the VSO strike fund can be made at: tinyurl.com/vsostrikefund.