New York Museum Unions Ratify Contracts with Wage Gains

Unionized staff at the American Folk Art Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Jewish Museum, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum have ratified new four-year contracts. The Brooklyn Museum and American Folk Art Museum finalized their agreements this week, while the Guggenheim and Jewish Museum unions ratified theirs in September. These deals avert potential strikes that were authorized last month.

Brooklyn Museum delivers wage increases and retroactive raises

The Brooklyn Museum’s second contract guarantees annual raises. It boosts minimum salaries for full-time positions and provides hourly wage gains for front-facing staff, retroactive to July 1.

Minimum salaries for full-time positions now range between $63,585 and $129,854, depending on the level. By the end of the four-year contract, those minimums will rise another 10.34 percent. Front-facing visitor services and retail associates will earn between $28.69 and $32 per hour by the contract’s conclusion. Entry-level employees in the museum store, along with security and facilities staff, will see raises of between 8 and 22 percent.

Elizabeth St. George of the Brooklyn Museum union said, "We are pleased to have negotiated a second contract that preserves the quality of our health care and provides significant wage increases."

AFAM secures first contract with comprehensive protections

The American Folk Art Museum union ratified its inaugural contract after nearly two years of bargaining. It guarantees annual wage increases totaling 13.6 percent over four years for all staff. Entry-level store, security, and facilities employees receive raises of 8 to 22 percent, also retroactive to July 1.

The contract establishes a binding grievance procedure and provides additional pay for employees who take on extra duties or work on-site during an emergency. It limits the museum’s use of temporary employees and subcontractors to replace regular staff. The agreement also ensures health-care coverage without requiring employee premium contributions.

Guggenheim and Jewish Museum unions act amid broader labor context

The Guggenheim Museum union, which includes approximately 150 curators, conservators, educators, and public programmers, ratified its second contract. The union organized in 2021 and secured its first contract in 2023. Negotiations for this new agreement began in December 2025.

Earlier this year, the museum announced layoffs affecting 20 employees, or 7 percent of its workforce. The union, chaired by Drew Reynolds, sought strengthened job security provisions, including advance notice of layoffs and improved severance pay. In March, members picketed the opening reception for the museum’s Carol Bove survey. Details of the final Guggenheim and Jewish Museum contracts were not immediately available.

These settlements occur amid wider organizing. Local 2110, which represents museum workers nationally, is currently negotiating new contracts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, the South Street Seaport Museum, and the Noguchi Museum.

Strike threats loom at Whitney as other museums settle

Despite settlements elsewhere, roughly 200 unionized workers at the Whitney Museum of American Art remain without a contract. They have set a strike deadline for Monday, October 5. That date is three days before member previews begin for the museum’s major Roy Lichtenstein retrospective. Staff were prepared to picket throughout the exhibition's preview week.

The union voted to authorize a strike last month alongside those at the Brooklyn Museum and American Folk Art Museum. The Whitney workforce was reduced by 20 percent after two rounds of layoffs. Whitney Museum workers are prepared to strike on October 5 if no agreement is reached, coinciding with the Roy Lichtenstein retrospective preview week.