AUGUST 4, 2022
Subject: Sales incentives, email addresses, oh my!
Subject: Sales incentives, email addresses, oh my!
Hello friends!
It’s wonderful to be writing my first update for the Bargaining Committee! I’m excited to represent all of you moving forward, and I’m excited with the progress we are already making in my short time here. We have a lot of updates from this past week of bargaining!
One of the biggest changes that we have reached an agreement with management on moving forward is that all four museums are going to be implementing commissions for frontline staff selling memberships, with a goal of increasing sales at each museum by 15%. We have confirmed there will be no disciplinary action taken against employees or units that don’t meet any sales goals, this is purely for incentive to boost membership sales. There will be a predetermined amount of commission per membership sold based on the tier of membership, with most commissions being a 5% incentive. Hopefully, this can be an immediate aid for our frontline staff until we are able to bargain for more permanent pay raises.
In the spirit of collaboration, management from the museums has also taken a proactive stance on one of our more loudly grieved issues of communication from management to its staff. This has been a long-standing issue for our bargaining unit, as over 70% of us (including me!) are part-time workers who, in the past, have not been allowed access to employer-provided email addresses. This has been a major issue for a majority of us in being excluded from all-staff emails and important updates from our managers. Management has heard us loud and clear, and brought a proposal to immediately provide all of our staff with CMP email addresses. This is a big win all around for those of us that have been locked out of museum communications for so long, and it has shown a willingness to work together from management on the issues that we care the most about fixing.
Hopefully these changes are good omens of future wins, but we are by no means done fighting to make these museums the best that they possibly can be. I know that it can be hard to wait for the process, but I’m excited for these changes that are happening, and excited for the changes that are ahead of us. Thanks to all of your support and the hard work of our CAT, we have gotten a few steps closer to our goals this week.
I hope we can take this momentum with us through the rest of the summer as we keep working with you all, and as always you can email us if you have any questions or if you want to help at unitedmuseumworkers.usw@gmail.com
Yours in solidarity,
Abby Michalowski
Bio:
Abby Michalowski has worked at CMOA as an Educator since 2017, and has been a Gallery Attendant at the AWM for almost two years. She was born and raised in Pittsburgh, and wanted to work at the museums since visiting for a field trip as a child. She attended Evangel University in Springfield, Missouri for a BFA and did not like living there. She has since made a career as an artist and an illustrator, creating artwork for the National Parks Department, book covers, and private commissions. She was a performance painter in the CMOA’s 57th Carnegie International artwork, Fruit and Other Things, by Jon Rubin and Lenka Clayton. She has two bulldogs that she spoils terribly because they are so cute.
It’s wonderful to be writing my first update for the Bargaining Committee! I’m excited to represent all of you moving forward, and I’m excited with the progress we are already making in my short time here. We have a lot of updates from this past week of bargaining!
One of the biggest changes that we have reached an agreement with management on moving forward is that all four museums are going to be implementing commissions for frontline staff selling memberships, with a goal of increasing sales at each museum by 15%. We have confirmed there will be no disciplinary action taken against employees or units that don’t meet any sales goals, this is purely for incentive to boost membership sales. There will be a predetermined amount of commission per membership sold based on the tier of membership, with most commissions being a 5% incentive. Hopefully, this can be an immediate aid for our frontline staff until we are able to bargain for more permanent pay raises.
In the spirit of collaboration, management from the museums has also taken a proactive stance on one of our more loudly grieved issues of communication from management to its staff. This has been a long-standing issue for our bargaining unit, as over 70% of us (including me!) are part-time workers who, in the past, have not been allowed access to employer-provided email addresses. This has been a major issue for a majority of us in being excluded from all-staff emails and important updates from our managers. Management has heard us loud and clear, and brought a proposal to immediately provide all of our staff with CMP email addresses. This is a big win all around for those of us that have been locked out of museum communications for so long, and it has shown a willingness to work together from management on the issues that we care the most about fixing.
Hopefully these changes are good omens of future wins, but we are by no means done fighting to make these museums the best that they possibly can be. I know that it can be hard to wait for the process, but I’m excited for these changes that are happening, and excited for the changes that are ahead of us. Thanks to all of your support and the hard work of our CAT, we have gotten a few steps closer to our goals this week.
I hope we can take this momentum with us through the rest of the summer as we keep working with you all, and as always you can email us if you have any questions or if you want to help at unitedmuseumworkers.usw@gmail.com
Yours in solidarity,
Abby Michalowski
Bio:
Abby Michalowski has worked at CMOA as an Educator since 2017, and has been a Gallery Attendant at the AWM for almost two years. She was born and raised in Pittsburgh, and wanted to work at the museums since visiting for a field trip as a child. She attended Evangel University in Springfield, Missouri for a BFA and did not like living there. She has since made a career as an artist and an illustrator, creating artwork for the National Parks Department, book covers, and private commissions. She was a performance painter in the CMOA’s 57th Carnegie International artwork, Fruit and Other Things, by Jon Rubin and Lenka Clayton. She has two bulldogs that she spoils terribly because they are so cute.
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