Tacoma Art Museum workers still in limbo over union decision

Tacoma Art Museum Workers United is still in limbo after a special meeting March 31 with the museum’s board of trustees. The board did not announce a decision on if it would recognize the museum workers’ union.

“They were very tight lipped and didn’t divulge much about what their decision was going to be,” said Stephen Rue, organizing committee member and lead preparer at the museum.

Rue said he and the two other committee members gave a half-hour presentation to the board at the meeting. After their presentation, Rue said the board had few questions or comments for the committee before ushering them out.

The committee members, museum employees and supporters from a variety of labor organizations gathered after the presentation in the museum’s parking lot. They said they hoped to hear more from the board, which continued to meet after the committee left.

“It’s really, really sad that our board won’t just do the right thing,” said Carrie Morton, another committee member addressing the crowd. “It’s pretty simple math that we have the numbers, TAM is going to have a union at some point regardless. Moreover, we deserve a union and we need a union.” 

Tacoma Art Museum Workers United has been seeking voluntary recognition since October. The union has over 80% support among its members. The museum’s board of trustees has said the collective needs to go through an election with the National Labor and Relations Board, but this would exclude the museum’s two security guards from the union. Workers say they are against taking this route and want voluntary recognition from the board. 

The employees of the museum said they are seeking to organize for better pay, improved working conditions and more of a say in workplace decisions.  

“We as a union want the museum to succeed,” Rue said in an interview with NWPB in March. “We want success, we want to be able to serve the community and so we’re looking for the best way to do that. We think that a union will help the museum out of this, we’re not trying to make it harder, we’re actually trying to make the healing of our institution easier.” 

As of April 4, no further information had been provided by the museum’s board of trustees about any decisions made following last Friday’s meeting.