Guggenheim Staff Picket Rashid Johnson Opening in Protest of Layoffs
148April 19, 2025
Employees of New York’sSolomon R. Guggenheim Museumon April 16 demonstrated outside the institution in response to itsrecent staff cuts.Hyperallergicreports that more than fifty cultural workers, including employees of the American Folk Art Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, Dia Art Foundation, the Hispanic Society, the Museum of Modern Art, and the New Museum, rallied near the Guggenheim’s Fifth Avenue entrance during the opening reception for the museum’s Rashid Johnson exhibition, decrying the abruptness of the February layoffs, which the Guggenheim had said were necessary to improve its financial health.
The cuts touched six departments, including education, archives, publications, and advancement, with curators and management emerging unscathed. Fourteen of the dismissed employees are represented by Local 2110 United Auto Workers (UAW). At the time of the layoffs, the union said it had received no advance notice of the cuts and that it had filed a grievance regarding the matter and issued a call for negotiations.
“I would like [museum leaders] to look at the people they’re laying off, and not just the numbers,” sixty-four-year-old Maureen Ahearn, who had worked at the Guggenheim since 1992 before being laid off from its archives and library services department, told Hyperallergic. “They could have moved me to another job or decreased my salary, but there was no notice.”
“Earlier this year, our financial picture required us to make the difficult decision to reduce staffing and reorganize some teams to position the museum well for the future,” a Guggenheim spokesperson said in a statement. “The impacted colleagues included members of UAW Local 2110, whom we thank for their hard work on behalf of the museum and its mission. All terms of our contract negotiated with UAW Local 2110 have been adhered to.”