BALTIMORE — May Day, also known as May Day and designated International Workers’ Day by the Second International in the late 19th century, is an important date in the history of labor in the United States. May Day commemorates the 1886 Haymarket Affair in Chicago, when workers violently opposed the authorities and finally won the right to an eight-hour workday – a benefit so common these days that it’s easy to d forget that you ever had to fight for it.
Exactly two years ago today, May 1, 2021, workers at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore publicly announced their intention to form a union. Walters Workers United (WWU) was the first of several major city institutions to launch what can now be called a labor movement in the cultural sector. Workers at the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) and the Enoch Pratt Free Library then followed suit, publicizing their own plans to form the BMA Union (BMAU) and Pratt Workers United (PWU), respectively, and are now all doing two part of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the same labor group that is currently helping WWU secure their election.
Although WWU was the first to begin to organize, its progress was thwarted when leaders of the Walters’ museum attempted to delay or even derail the process. In a newsletter aired last September, just before Labor Day weekend, Walters Art Museum director Julia Marciari-Alexander wrote that workers “resisted taking the necessary steps under their control to proceed with a vote trade union”, a claim that the union denounced as manifestly false.
The staff of the Walters Museum fell into a gap in the labor law covered by the public sector. In 2022 and 2023, workers introduced legislation to activate their bargaining rights and have their union recognized. This created necessary pressure, opening the possibility of having discussions with the management of the museum on union recognition. In the end, the Walters workers were able obtain a neutral third-party union election agreement. During two years of activity, workers rallied, petitioned, made phone calls, sent emails and went public with their support for the formation of a union. Their solidarity prevailed.
Part of the Walters workers’ fight for their union has also been a fight for transparency and accountability at the Walters. Last spring, an AFSCME staffer on behalf of Walters Workers United filed a FOIA requesting financial information and details about how museum management communicated about the union. The workers sought to better understand how the museum engaged in their labor struggle and how its funds were used during this process.
Museum management refused access to internal correspondence regarding the union, saying the Walters is a private institution and therefore not covered by Maryland public information law. Judge John Nugent of the Baltimore City Circuit Court disagreed and later issued a decision finding that the Walters Art Museum “an instrument of government for the purposes of the Maryland Public Information Act.”
The Walters Art Museum did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
With a union election deal now in place, Walters workers have the momentum for an election, while the BMAU and PWU have won their respective elections and are each in the midst of their first contract negotiations.
Much of the organizing efforts in Baltimore over the past two years began during the pandemic and associated quarantines, which affected the hours of operation of these public organizations. As “essential workers,” frontline staff at art museums and libraries were expected to continue working in close proximity to visitors throughout the various closures and reopenings. For many of them, noted Gregory Bailey, Senior Conservator of Objects at Walters for the past eight years, “the COVID-19 era has exposed the precariousness of our employment and support networks.”
“Despite a global pandemic and very high staff turnover, we have maintained a strong majority of support over the past two years,” Bailey said. “Worker solidarity and mutual aid are natural responses to this reality.
There are several other public organizations in Baltimore that have not yet unionized: the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) and the nearby Maryland Science Center and the National Aquarium, all located around Baltimore’s Inner Harbor near of Enoch Pratt and the Walters. . One reason may be the limited and ever-changing pool of workers in these establishments. A source close to AVAM who asked to remain anonymous explained how a small museum staff with high turnover led to nothing more than “informal discussions among part-time staff about the idea to unionize, but no real steps or planning”. Perhaps a union election victory at the Walters will inspire these other public institutions.
Baltimore has a long and rich history steeped in union traditions. In fact, the first attempt to form a national trade union group in the United States began there when the National Labor Union was founded on August 20, 1866. One of their main goals was to get Congress to impose an eight-hour work day. Although they failed to do so at the time, their work laid the groundwork for future victory. The idea of an eight-hour workday was picked up decades later by Theodore Roosevelt’s progressive campaign. The slogan of the movement became: “Eight hours on, eight hours off and eight hours for what you want”. It may take years to materialize, but the momentum has to come from somewhere. Like early National Labor Union efforts, the WWU lit the fuse that eventually sparked a union boom in Baltimore.
Though far removed from those turbulent years of the early American labor movement, when violent clashes erupted between union busters and organizers, the struggle for improved benefits, decent wages, and better working conditions generally continues into the post-industrial 21st century.
“Walters Art Museum workers want a say in their workplace and protect their jobs,” says Lex Reehill, manager of the museum’s monitor room. “Many have worked at the Walters for years, even decades, and being ‘at will’ means the job is not protected. We want a sustainable way to provide for our families that will not disappear overnight at the discretion of management. »
Although arts and culture organizations are less likely to resort to the harsh union busting tactics of yesteryear, they are not above a more passive approach of obfuscation and blocking. By dragging out the process or denying elections based on outdated practices, many of them hope to win the long end by sowing doubt in the grassroots.
The surge in unionization at Baltimore’s many beloved cultural institutions over the past two years calls for its own form of recognition. To be known as “The Monumental City” in the early 19th century after a boom in memorial building after the War of 1812 until it was renamed to “Charming Town” in the mid-1970s as part of a public relations campaign to economically revive a struggling post-industrial metropolis, Baltimore operated under different aliases over the years. Given the recent surge of union organizing in Baltimore, it may be time to create a new one: “Union City”.
