The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York introduced on Friday that it’ll lay off 20 workers in an effort to enhance its monetary scenario. The cuts, which signify round 7% of the museum’s workers, are in response to “quite a few challenges felt throughout our area, in the USA and overseas, together with rising prices, variable attendance ranges and adjustments in worldwide tourism”, a Guggenheim spokesperson mentioned in a press release.
In a letter to workers quoted by The New York Occasions, the museum’s director and chief govt Mariët Westermann wrote that the choice was vital as a result of the establishment’s “general monetary image is just not the place it must be”. The layoffs will have an effect on workers in six departments, together with training, publications, archives and development. Curators and executives is not going to be affected, and senior leaders is not going to take pay cuts as a part of the try and reign in prices.
“In recent times, we’ve taken proactive steps to adapt our monetary and operational fashions to this altering setting,” a museum spokesperson added. “Whereas these efforts are creating the situations for long-term development and sustainability, our present monetary image requires us to make the tough choice to cut back staffing and reorganise some groups to place the museum effectively for the longer term. Our impacted colleagues have proven dedication and dedication to the museum and its mission, and we thank them for his or her arduous work.”
The workers reductions introduced Friday come after two earlier rounds of layoffs on the Guggenheim, wherein upwards of 30 folks have been let go. In 2023 the museum additionally joined a number of high-profile museums within the US in elevating the value of basic admission to $30. Nonetheless, the museum’s attendance has been sluggish to rebound after the Covid-19 pandemic: in line with The Artwork Newspaper’s annual survey of museum customer figures, 861,374 folks visited the Guggenheim in 2023, 33% fewer than in 2019.
Staff on the Guggenheim are among the many many museum workers within the US who’ve unionised over the previous decade. In 2019, amenities staff together with installers, artwork handlers and engineers shaped a union underneath Native 30 of the Worldwide Union of Working Engineers (IUOE). And in 2021, workers together with curators, conservators, educators, customer companies representatives and others organised a union underneath Native 2110 of the United Auto Staff (UAW). In line with a consultant for UAW Native 2110, nearly all of workers laid off on Friday are members of the union; representatives for IUOE Native 30 didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
“There have been 14 folks in our union who have been laid off with out discover and have been additionally denied any union illustration within the conferences wherein they have been knowledgeable about their layoff,” says Maida Rosenstein, the director of organising for UAW Native 2110. “The museum refused to launch the names of the individuals who have been laid off to the union or to present us another info. The union has already filed a grievance over this and has demanded info and bargaining with the museum over the layoffs.”
The Guggenheim is just not the one New York establishment affected by persistent monetary hardships popping out of the pandemic. The Brooklyn Museum has introduced plans to terminate 47 workers (round 10% of its workers) by 10 March in an effort to rectify a finances deficit of almost $10m. As a part of that effort, senior leaders will take wage cuts of as much as 20%. Earlier this week, round 100 folks together with native politicians and colleagues from different museums rallied exterior the Brooklyn Museum to protest the mass layoffs.
