The Philadelphia Art Museum is an icon of the City of Brotherly Love, and there’s no shortage of art lovers who wouldn’t consider a chance to work there to be a dream job. But passion and prestige don’t pay the bills, as many museum workers have found while being severely undercompensated for their labor. After a public spreadsheet displaying the vast disparities in salaries at the museum was circulated in 2019 by a group called Art Museum and Transparency, workers at the PMA began to organize for a union. This summer, the PMA Union held a successful three-week strike after two years of contract negotiations. The Real News speaks with Adam Rizzo, Museum Educator and President of AFSCME Local 397, and Amanda Bock, Assistant Curator and Co-Lead Shop Steward of the PMA Union.
Click here to read the episode transcript: https://therealnews.com/employers-cant-use-your-passions-as-an-excuse-not-to-pay-you
Post-Production: Adam Coley
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** (Disclaimer: This video content is intended for educational and informational purposes only) **
The idea that you can pay people less, even dramatically less, for a doing a job that they are passionate about, has stealthily become a bedrock assumption of employers everywhere. It doesn’t matter how important the job is, or the level of training and skill it requires. If it’s a job that someone would actually want to do, then employers will use that as an excuse for low wages and benefits. This mindset wasn’t the norm 30 years ago, and as an example you can look at what has happened to the wages of school teachers in that period.
I would be curious to know what kind of positions were held by the museum managers who showed contempt for the workers. If curators were on the union side of the table, who was on the other side? I don’t know much about the organizational structure of a museum so I’m trying to picture who these people were who could be so disconnected from the other people in the same museum.
If the government didn't take half the money you earned, a higher wage wouldn't be needed as you would have doubled your buying power. People really need to stop looking at things backwards. Always raising wages leads in a never ending spiral where the only thing that changes is the number, but the practical effects are the same.
I am going to name a company, if it gets a butt hurt that's just fine it should have gotten a lot more over the decades.
Lucas Film.
About 20 years back they had a job opening, storage engineer, I was qualified for that so I applied.
We got through the interview and the topic of salary came up, it was literally half industry standard for the level of qualification they were asking for.
I balked, asked them if they were firm and the response was I sht you not:
"But look where you'll be working, you'll be helping make Star Wars movies! You know a lot of people think that is cooler."
My first thought was cooler than cash, you are joking right? But the look his face and the tone of his voice told me he was probably one of them.
Any boss that doesn't pay employees a living wage deserves to wake up at 4AM, duct taped to its bed with four people wearing balaclava's and holding sharp weaponry standing over it – ready to "renegotiate" their terms and conditions.
Our bosses don't play "nice", why should we?
While lawmakers give themselves 7.8-12.7% yearly raises to match inflation, and just one CEO, CFO or COO's yearly bonus for failing, could pay almost all workers an extra $1K/month. Yay 💪ðŸ‘🇺🇸ðŸ
Museums are used as slush funds for politicians. They don't support the workers.
It’s so good to see people waking up! If these museums were honest they would carve your names in the steps rather than the donors who endowed the works to them (peanuts to the ruling class).
* The head of the museum be like These plebs get to s**t in the building where a Monet resides; They can eat oatmeal for breakfast, lunch, & dinner.
Dream job gig economy?
I recently(within the past three months) saw a video about interviews they had with women in various social classes. The question is as follows and I am paraphrasing somewhat: “would you rather have a job with a sewage authority that pays you $100,000 a year or would you rather have a job that does not pay anything But a high profile job where you can be seen every day� So the answer was 70% of the women answered that they would rather have the high profile job at no pay rather than work at the sewage authority.
Not making a living wage and benefits, is called volunteering. The wealthy have jacked up the prices of living, its time they share or I fear 1930's all over again.