Unionized workers at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York voted overwhelmingly in favor of authorizing a strike should current negotiations with museum administrators drag on. Of the affected workers represented by Local 2110 of the United Auto Workers (UAW), 93% voted to authorize a strike. Negotiations over a new contract have been ongoing since December 2025; the union’s previous collective bargaining agreement expired at the end of that month.
The negotiations are unfolding in the aftermath of significant staff changes at the Guggenheim that include layoffs of 20 employees (or around 7% of the museum’s total workforce) in February 2025, and this spring’s hiring of longtime Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden leader Melissa Chiu to be the Guggenheim’s new director.
“The layoffs last year were implemented chaotically. Laid off staff were told to leave the museum with no advance notice and no union representation. The cuts to staff created hardships for those of us remaining because we were forced to pick up a lot of extra work,” Drew Reynolds, an educator at the Guggenheim and the union chair, said in a statement. “Workers took the brunt of the cuts while museum leadership did not give up a penny in their salaries.”
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