After more than three weeks of strike, the personnel of the Hispanic Society Museum and Librarya cultural outpost for Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American art in New York, took the picket line to the Park Avenue apartment of Philippe de Montebello, the institution’s president and former Met executive Museum.

“Shame on Philippe,” shouted the trade unionists demanding a fair contract and their supporters. They held up union logos and handmade signs bearing slogans such as “19th century art, not 19th century wages” and chanted in English and Spanish for about an hour. De Montebello never emerged from the 32-story building.

“Since Philippe is not heeding our demands, we are taking the strike to his door,” print, photography and sculpture curator Patrick Lenaghan, who has worked at the museum for 28 years, told Artnet News. at the protest, adding that he hoped the march would highlight “the contrast between someone who lives on the Upper East Side and our audience not getting their programming.”

The museum closed in January 2017 for what was then described as a $15 million renovation project. The strike, the first for a New York museum in more than 20 years, has delayed plans to reopen the society’s main building in the Audubon Terrace museum complex, originally scheduled for April 6. A museum spokesperson said it still plans to open this spring. . (A show of Jose Clemente Orozco drawings which was to open in March in the basement galleries is now slated for a June 22 opening.)

Hispanic Society Museum and Library, New York. Photo courtesy of Hispanic Society Museum and Library, New York.

Since then, the Hispanic Society has held exhibitions of its collection at institutions around the world, with a tour that began in The Prado Museum to Madrid. But now strikers fear there is no funding for the institution’s master plan, nor a timeline for full-scale reopening.

“The art is expected to travel until 2024 or 2026, so we don’t see a reopening anytime soon,” Lenaghan said. “What they call a reopening, they were going to reopen the Sorolla room and hang maybe 10 paintings. This is not a reopening of Hispanic society as people knew it before it closed.

workers first moved to unionize in May 2021, after the Hispanic Society Board of Trustees terminated staff pension funds, jeopardizing the pension plans of workers who had been there for decades. They joined the Technical, Clerical and Professional Union, Local 2110, which is part of the United Auto Workers (UAW).

The Hispanic Society of America building on the Audubon Terrace in Washington Heights, New York. Photo by Asaavedra32, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported Licence.

Labor disputes at the Hispanic Society reflect a unionization movement in the museum sector.

“Museum workers are really fed up with how they have been undervalued and underrecognized,” Maida Rosenstein, president of Local 2110, told Artnet News.

The Hispanic Society’s bargaining unit is small, with just 19 members. But the rally drew around 50 people, including unionized colleagues from other institutions, such as the neighbor jewish museumwhich is also currently in contract negotiations after vote to unionize in January 2022.

Hispanic Society workers voted to strike after contract talks stalled. The administration wanted to change the benefits plan so that premiums and deductibles, previously covered by the museum, were now the responsibility of employees.

The two sides met with a federal mediator on April 3, with the museum offering a compromise position in which it would maintain all benefits for current employees, but future employees would be responsible for 10-25% of their health care premiums. , depending on salary. The current offer also increases the minimum wage range from $52,000 to $95,000, depending on the position.

Patrick Lenaghan, curator of prints, photographs and sculpture at the New York Hispanic Society Museum and Library, explains a union rally outside the Upper East Side home of museum president Philippe de Montebello to curious schoolchildren. Photo by Sarah Cascone.

“This proposal is highly competitive in the New York museum landscape, even against much wealthier cultural organizations,” the museum said in a statement, noting that the “recent behavior of union members, who harassed and/or or bullied other employees, interns and fellows, has become a matter of serious concern.

“We’re asking to keep what we already have, they’re asking for cuts,” Rosenstein said. “It wouldn’t take a lot of money to settle this strike. It’s so disrespectful.”

“[The administration] pretend[s] that we are the greedy,” added John O’Neill, curator of manuscripts and rare books at the museum, during the gathering’s closing speech.

John O’Neill, curator of manuscripts and rare books at the New York Hispanic Society Museum and Library, speaks during a union rally outside the house of museum president Philippe de Montebello on the Upper East Side. Photo by Patrick Lenaghan.

Targeting De Montebello was a strategic move for the union, as the president is well known for his 31 years at the helm of the Metropolitan Museum. De Montebello led the Hispanic Society as president since 2015taking the job with the stated goal of increasing foot traffic to the museum, which is located in the Washington Heights neighborhood off the beaten path for most New Yorkers

For staff at the Hispanic Society, the shutdown, which threatens to drag on indefinitely, has become more difficult over the past two years, according to Lenaghan, with just one curator and curator where previously there were three.

Members of the New York Hispanic Society Museum and Library Union picketed the Upper East Side home of museum president Philippe de Montebello. Photo by Patrick Lenaghan.

“This commitment to large exhibits outside of our building, which puts a strain on curators, conservators and collections management resources,” he said. “Most of the hiring is for administrative and executive assistants while key collection management duties are ignored.”

A spokesperson said the museum plans to hire additional staff “in the near future,” including a curator of Latin American arts and Latino art, a conservator of works on paper and a director of exhibitions.

The union fears this will come at the expense of the company’s impressive collection, which includes masterpieces such as Francois Goya, Diego VelazquezAnd El Greco, as well as a huge library of historical manuscripts. When a shipment of works on loan from the Royal Academy of Arts in London arrived at the Hispanic Society on April 13, some staff claimed careless handling of valuable works of art by contractors used in place of professional works of art managers.

Syndicate photographs reportedly show an unattended truck containing $200 million worth of artwork and a crate containing the museum’s famous Goya painting. Duchess of Albadriving down Broadway in heavy traffic.

Francois Goya, Duchess of Alba (1797). Collection of the Hispanic Society Museum and Library, New York.

The delivery was “properly handled and went smoothly as planned,” the museum said. Hyperallergic.

With the strike soon to stretch into its fourth week, unionized workers are hoping the museum will agree to a tiered health care system, reasonable raises and benefits of 401,000 to replace the pension plan.

“The museum can do it, it’s in its power. We ask them to treat staff with respect and dignity,” Lenaghan said. “It’s a strike that didn’t need to take place.”

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