Storm King Workers Approve First Union Contracts

Unionized workers at Storm King Art Center, in New York’s Hudson Valley, have approved their first labor union contract, ending months of negotiations over benefits and better wages. Approximately 75 workers at the beloved sculpture park, home to large-scale works by artists such as Richard Serra and Alexander Calder, voted in June 2023 to join two units of Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) Local 1000, an affiliate of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

The two new contracts ensure, that the average hourly wage will increase by more than 9 percent and that employers contribute to the workers’ 403(b) accounts.

In 2023, Storm King joined a number of prominent museums with unions under the umbrella of AFSCME, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Brooklyn Museum. Employees of the sculpture park began organizing in August 2022, following the announcement of a $45 million revamp of its campus set to be completed this year. Their demands echoed those that have underpinned the labor movement in cultural institutions across the United States: job security, and salaries and benefits that accommodate rising inflation and costs of living.

Storm King leadership did not immediately recognize the union and hired a New York law firm whose specialties include “union avoidance.” In March 2023, the union launched an Action Network campaign calling for supporters to email the institution’s board of trustees and demand they meet with union negotiators. 

“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,” Maureen Spaulding, a negotiating committee member from CSEA, told Midhudson News. “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.”

A Storm King representative did not immediately respond to ARTnews’s request for comment.