Brooklyn Museum and American Folk Art Museum Unions Reach Tentative Deals

Unionized staff at the Brooklyn Museum and the American Folk Art Museum (AFAM) have reached tentative agreements with their institutions, setting up ratification votes that could avert the strike action they authorized just two weeks ago.

Both unions announced the agreements on their Instagram pages and will begin voting on ratification on Monday, September 29. Neither union has disclosed the terms of its proposal.

The deals emerged before either union publicized a strike deadline, a marked contrast with the Whitney Museum's union, which set a strike date of October 5 ahead of a major Roy Lichtenstein exhibition. All three museum unions organized under UAW Local 2110, which represents workers across cultural institutions in New York City and nationwide.

The agreements come two weeks after staff at the Brooklyn Museum, AFAM and the Whitney jointly voted to authorize strike action amid stalled contract negotiations. A representative for the labor union did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Hyperallergic.

While the terms remain undisclosed, all three unions have mobilized around a wage floor of approximately $71,000 for full-time employees. That figure comes from a recent calculation by City Hall, which determined $71,000 to be the minimum income a single, childless adult needs to live sustainably in New York City.

The tentative agreements signal a potential de-escalation in a sector-wide labor push that had put three major New York museums on a collision course with their workforces. If members ratify the deals, attention will shift to the Whitney, whose October 5 strike deadline still stands.