Met Museum Staff Move to Unionize
52Nov. 19, 2025
Local 2110 of the United Automobile Workerson November 17 filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board to represent more than one thousand workers at theMetropolitan Museum of ArtinNew York. The museum already has two smaller unions, one representing security guards and the others projectionists. The proposedunionwould include curators, conservators, educators, and retail workers. If the effort is successful, the Met would become the largest unionized museum in the country.
The museum is the latest ofmany US arts institutionswhose employees petitioned to unionize in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis. The pandemic brought to the fore pay disparities at museums, with the wage gap between leadership and those on the front lines—who were asked to return to in-person work first, even as many reckoned with job precarity and a lack of insurance—coming into especially sharp relief. Too, though many museums are struggling to achieve pre-pandemic attendance levels and to maintain fiscal stability, a number of these have forged ahead with major capital projects paid for by private donors who have earmarked their contributions for expressly this purpose. The Met, for example, is hard at work on theFrida Escobedo–designedOscar L. Tang and HM Agnes Hsu-Tang Wing, toward which the philanthropists for which it is nameddonated $125 million.
“Right now, we’re contending with several large-scale capital projects that displace people and create a lot of additional work for the staff,” collections manager Allison Clark said in a statement. “Unionizing is the only way for us to have a strong collective voice to address concerns with the museum.”
According to a museum spokesperson, the Met employs 2,015 workers, more than six hundred of whom are paid more than $100,000 per year. Salaries across the board increased annually by an average of 4 percent over the past five years.
“Over many decades, we have worked to develop a culture of inclusivity, collaboration and creativity, and take every opportunity to uplift our employees,” Met spokesperson Ann Bailis told the New York Times. “We respect the right to seek union representation and are proud of our longstanding relationships with DC37 and Local 306 IATSE, which represent a large segment of our staff.”