Union workers at the Art Institute of Chicago are demanding the museum reverse its decision to outsource the entire custodial staff to a private contractor.
The cultural institution announced it will no longer employ 23 custodial workers on June 29, according to the union, Art Institute of Chicago Workers United. The employees’ last day is Aug. 14, but a museum spokesperson said they will have the opportunity to re-apply for their positions with the new company, GDI Integrated Facility Services, based in Canada.
“The Art Institute deeply values our employees and we are grateful for the important work our custodial team does every day,” the spokesperson said in an email to the Sun-Times. “We made the decision to shift our custodial services to a contractor model to better support daily museum operations, and we prioritized choosing a partner that would commit to offering employment to our custodial staff.”
Because their jobs aren’t guaranteed, the workers are concerned about their livelihood, said Ben Conboy, communications director for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31, the union’s bargaining unit.
The staffers, including some who have worked for the museum for 20 years, will also lose benefits such as paid time off, tuition remission and student loan forgiveness, Conboy said. (The museum spokesperson said the custodial workers hired by the contractor will be represented by the Service Employees International Union, which has a contract protecting wages, paid time off and benefits.)
“It’s just a really awful, shameful situation that these employees are being treated in this way when their work is already so thankless, so often taken for granted, but just as vital as any other employee of the museum when it comes to making the Art Institute the world-class institution that it is,” he said.
“We’re calling on the museum to abandon this decision and keep these custodians where they belong — as Art Institute employees.”
AFSCME 31 has filed a grievance, claiming the Art Institute violated the contract by failing to provide notice before finalizing the decision to outsource labor. The Art Institute spokesperson disputes the claims, telling the Sun-Times that the museum operated within the terms of the union agreement.
“We prioritized finding a partner that could offer compensation that would be commensurate or higher than what we currently offer,” the spokesperson said.
As the union awaits an opportunity to bargain with museum management, the custodial team is despondent, said Vicente Robinson, an executive board member of the Art Institute of Chicago Workers United.
“There’s a lot of distrust and despair,” said Robinson, 30, of North Center, a museum employee who isn’t on the custodial team. “A lot of people feel let down by the institution.”
But the staffers are appreciative of the support they have received, especially from those who signed the union’s petition opposing the museum’s decision to outsource the jobs.
“It has been really heartening to see the community support us throughout this,” Robinson said. “We’ve got quite a lot of signatures. The custodial members who are affected were surprised by the outpouring.”
The Art Institute was among the first of many Chicago cultural organizations to unionize in recent years. AFSCME’s Cultural Workers United organizing campaign represents 50,000 cultural workers nationwide, including employees of the Field Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Shedd Aquarium and Newberry Library.
“A lot of the sentiment shared by members of the community is that this feels very blatantly like a move to pull members out of our bargaining unit and to wither away at our union that was hard-fought and hard-won by all of our employees, including our custodial staff,” Robinson said.