Storm King Staff Approve Inaugural Contracts

Unionized workers atStorm King Art Centerin New Windsor, New York, haveapprovedtheir first contracts with the open-air sculpture park following eight months of negotiations. Staff at the Hudson Valley institution firstannouncedtheir plans to unionize in 2022, shortly after the museum revealedplansfor a $45 million capital project. After some resistance on the part of Storm King, employees achieved their goal in June 2023, voting to join two units of the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA), which is affiliated with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

Among the stipulations of the two contracts, ratified July 30, are a 9 percent increase in hourly wages; the assurance of employer contributions to workers’ 403(b) accounts; minimum call-in pay (four hours for on-site call-ins and one hour for remote work); cancelation pay for shifts canceled with less than twenty-four hours’ notice; remuneration for out-of-title work; and two additional days of paid time off.

“We see this first contract as a foundation we can build upon now that we have our union and the voice on the job that comes with it,” said Maureen Spaulding, a CSEA negotiating committee member, in a statement. “Right away, we’re all benefiting from an immediate wage increase following our contract vote. Having that contract gives us a written guarantee for our wage increases, health insurance costs, and other benefits for the next several years. Before we organized our union, there were no guarantees year to year.”

In unionizing, Storm King workers joined those across the United States, from the Tacoma Art Museum to the Art Institute of Chicago to New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum who in the past few years have organized to achieve better wages and protections following the Covid-19 pandemic, which threw into stark relief the precarity of many museum jobs.

“During contract negotiations, workers maintained the same solidarity they showed when they were organizing their union, and they now have two strong contracts to show for it,” said CSEA Southern Region president Anthony Adamo in a statement. “We hope that workers in other cultural institutions can look to the CSEA members at Storm King Art Center as proof that there is power in a union and there is no substitute for the stability that comes with a union contract.”