Seattle Art Museum security staff will strike barring new contract

Amid ongoing negotiations over wages and health care benefits, the union representing the Seattle Art Museum security staff has voted to authorize a strike next month, the union said Tuesday in a news release.

SAM VSO Union, which represents SAM’s “visitor service officers,” has set a strike deadline of Nov. 29. If a contract is not agreed upon by then, the VSOs will go on strike, the union said.  

Representatives from the union said the strike vote was spurred by the museum dragging its feet on bargaining and a refusal from the museum’s board of trustees to meet with workers. 

“We have been negotiating since August 2022,” said security staffer Eddie Lopez. “Our members are getting tired and they want an actual contract that will benefit them.” 

In a statement, a SAM representative said there has been “significant progress” at the bargaining table, and that the museum has bargained in good faith since starting negotiations.

“Though we are disappointed that the VSO union members have voted to authorize a strike, SAM respects the rights of our employees to be part of a union and make their voices heard,” the spokesperson said.

According to the news release, 50 of 54 voters chose to strike, with an estimated 80% of all union members voting.

SAM’s security workers and museum leadership have been in contract talks for more than two years. The VSOs first announced their independent union effort in the spring of 2022, joining a national movement of museum employees seeking unionization. 

SAM and the union agreed this summer to re-engage a mediator as negotiations dragged on. SAM and VSO representatives met Tuesday for bargaining, which remains ongoing. 

In the event of a strike, SAM will engage a third-party security contractor to provide temporary services, per the museum.  

VSO Union members said two-plus years of bargaining is too long, and that the museum hasn’t provided meaningful counters on its economic demands, including a $27/hour starting wage, scaling pay rates, health care expansion for part-time workers, and reinstatement of employer retirement matching. 

Another issue is that the museum’s board of trustees has not met with the union, VSO representatives said. 

“Recognizing this need to reach the decision-makers of the Seattle Art Museum, the union has escalated actions for over eight months attempting to get a meeting with the Seattle Art Museum board of trustees, to share their living conditions and necessities for greater wages and benefits to survive in Seattle,” the news release said. “Despite union letters, petitions and pickets, all board members have refused to even take a 30-minute meeting with the union workers.” 

The museum spokesperson said that “SAM has put forward a comprehensive and competitive package that reflects our values as a nonprofit organization and compensates union members at market-leading rates compared to security professionals at peer institutions in Seattle.”

Union negotiations often last more than a year: A Bloomberg Law analysis from 2022 showed it takes an average of 465 days, or 1.27 years, to reach a first contract. That figure is likely around 500 now, per an Economic Policy Institute report from last year.

This strike authorization comes amid high-profile strikes this year from museum workers at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, Science and Natural History Museum in London, and the Louvre in Paris, as well as other Seattle-area strikes, from hotel workers and Boeing Machinists. 

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