MARCH 15, 2023
Hello United Museum Workers,
This week your Bargaining Committee heads back to the bargaining table with the hope that we might finally see some significant improvements in the Museums’ economic proposals. We’re dedicating this bargaining update to addressing some of the points made in CMP’s own recent bargaining update (the first from their side after more than a year of negotiations).
In their update CMP reports that the Union and CMP “have made great progress in our negotiations on a first contract that will support the needs of Carnegie Museums and all its USW-represented staff members for years to come.” While it’s true that we have made some progress on a number of important issues, it’s quite a stretch to claim we’ve made “great” progress when the two sides remain far apart on the most pressing issue of all for staff: a contract that provides for fair and just wages.
CMP goes on to describe President Knapp’s “great concern” over the base wages that the Museums were paying when he joined CMP in 2020 and how that concern translated into wages increasing by 50% since that time. We don’t see raising a worker’s pay from a poverty wage of $8 an hour to a poverty wage of $12 as anything worth bragging about. We think CMP can and must do way better. Just recently we saw the Phipps Conservatory raise its minimum base wage to $16 an hour (wow, we wonder where they got the idea for that?) and the Whitney Museum of American Art reach a settlement with its staff that provides salary and wage increases averaging 30% in the first year of their agreement. Are they superior institutions to ours? Is their workforce more deserving than ours?
Another bit of misleading self-congratulations in CMP’s update has to do with healthcare benefits. That’s the part of their update describing their proposal to maintain the same healthcare options at the same contribution levels for benefit-eligible bargaining unit staff as eligible staff outside the bargaining unit. That’s actually quite similar to our proposal, which they’ve now partially adopted after rejecting it and counter-proposing contribution increases of 100 to 300 percent, depending on the type of coverage. The difference between our proposals is that we would have the current health insurance benefit continue over the three-year term of our contract and require that CMP give us 90-days notice and the opportunity to bargain if they should want to make any changes to the benefit. Their proposal would allow them to change the benefit with only 30-days notice and no right to bargain.
In closing, we’re pleased that CMP says it wants to reach an agreement that meets our needs, but we’d much rather they actually show us by putting some serious wage proposals on the table. We suspect the only way that’s going to happen is if hundreds of us convey to CMP that we are unified and determined to accept nothing less than a fair and just contract. That means signing a USW membership card and attending our next general membership meeting on March 21st at 6:30 p.m. at the USW building and over Zoom. We’ll review CMP’s latest proposals and discuss preparations for a possible work stoppage, starting with the scheduling of a strike authorization vote.
This week your Bargaining Committee heads back to the bargaining table with the hope that we might finally see some significant improvements in the Museums’ economic proposals. We’re dedicating this bargaining update to addressing some of the points made in CMP’s own recent bargaining update (the first from their side after more than a year of negotiations).
In their update CMP reports that the Union and CMP “have made great progress in our negotiations on a first contract that will support the needs of Carnegie Museums and all its USW-represented staff members for years to come.” While it’s true that we have made some progress on a number of important issues, it’s quite a stretch to claim we’ve made “great” progress when the two sides remain far apart on the most pressing issue of all for staff: a contract that provides for fair and just wages.
CMP goes on to describe President Knapp’s “great concern” over the base wages that the Museums were paying when he joined CMP in 2020 and how that concern translated into wages increasing by 50% since that time. We don’t see raising a worker’s pay from a poverty wage of $8 an hour to a poverty wage of $12 as anything worth bragging about. We think CMP can and must do way better. Just recently we saw the Phipps Conservatory raise its minimum base wage to $16 an hour (wow, we wonder where they got the idea for that?) and the Whitney Museum of American Art reach a settlement with its staff that provides salary and wage increases averaging 30% in the first year of their agreement. Are they superior institutions to ours? Is their workforce more deserving than ours?
Another bit of misleading self-congratulations in CMP’s update has to do with healthcare benefits. That’s the part of their update describing their proposal to maintain the same healthcare options at the same contribution levels for benefit-eligible bargaining unit staff as eligible staff outside the bargaining unit. That’s actually quite similar to our proposal, which they’ve now partially adopted after rejecting it and counter-proposing contribution increases of 100 to 300 percent, depending on the type of coverage. The difference between our proposals is that we would have the current health insurance benefit continue over the three-year term of our contract and require that CMP give us 90-days notice and the opportunity to bargain if they should want to make any changes to the benefit. Their proposal would allow them to change the benefit with only 30-days notice and no right to bargain.
In closing, we’re pleased that CMP says it wants to reach an agreement that meets our needs, but we’d much rather they actually show us by putting some serious wage proposals on the table. We suspect the only way that’s going to happen is if hundreds of us convey to CMP that we are unified and determined to accept nothing less than a fair and just contract. That means signing a USW membership card and attending our next general membership meeting on March 21st at 6:30 p.m. at the USW building and over Zoom. We’ll review CMP’s latest proposals and discuss preparations for a possible work stoppage, starting with the scheduling of a strike authorization vote.
@UMWpgh
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@UMWpgh
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@umwpgh
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