The South Central Federation of Labor (SCFL) affiliated union representatives gather monthlly to help further the goals of supporting working people and their families.
About 20 Marciano Art Foundation staff members who had been part of a mass layoff last week, only four days after announcing plans to unionize, gathered Friday at Shakey’s Pizza in Hollywood.
The specific target on this day: Marciano Artistic Director Olivia Marciano.
The employees, all dressed in black, walked across the street to deliver a letter to LAXart, the nonprofit exhibition and programming space where Olivia Marciano sits on the board. The workers said Marciano Art Foundation’s abrupt closure and layoff of employees was in direct opposition to the nonprofit LAXart’s socially conscious mission, which states, in part, “that contemporary art is a means of understanding key issues of our time.”
Los Angeles labor organizers have filed a complaint against the Marciano Art Foundation after the museum abruptly closed last week. The museum had previously laid off all its visitor services staff—some 70 people—just days after employees announced plans to unionize. The museum cited low attendance as the reason for its closure.
Marciano Art Foundation Union organizers, who were attempting to join the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, filed the complaint to the National Labor Relations Board, accusing the museum of illegal union busting practices in retaliation for the efforts to unionize.
The foundation “has illegally discriminated against its employees by laying off employees en masse and/or closing its facility,” the complaint says, as reported by the New York Times. Federal law prohibits the suspension or firing of workers who engage in union activity.
Dozens of fired museum employees and their supporters rallied last Friday outside the Marciano Art Foundation, the now-closed arts institution in a former Scottish Rite Masonic Temple on Wilshire Boulevard.
Opening just two and a half years ago, Marciano Art Foundation management cited low attendance as its reasoning for closing its collection to the general public. It shut just days after its visitor services associates, or VSAs, publicly announced their intent to unionize.
Sixty of Marciano’s employees had voted to join the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employee (AFSCME) union.
Since their firing, workers have filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board, on the grounds of illegal discrimination.
A group of about 50 visitor services associates gathered outside the Marciano Art Foundation at 10:30am on Friday, the same as they would on a regular workday in anticipation of clocking in. Today, however, they had assembled to protest the foundation’s recent announcement that it would be laying off all of its 70 associates and shuttering its doors to the public. These developments came only days after a group of employees made public their decision to unionize.
“We’re here because of the gross and illegal actions the Marcianos have taken in response to our fully legal, totally right and moral decision to unionize,” the floor lead and union organizer Spencer Longo told the assembled crowd of workers, union representatives, and supporters, all dressed in black despite the punishing Los Angeles sun. “Their response was to shut down the Marciano and lie to the public about why they’re doing it, hoping that everybody forgets about it when they try to reopen again in the future.” An official statement from the Marciano Foundation said “low attendance” was behind their decision.
Lylwyn Esangga, an organizing director at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), told Hyperallergic that they had three goals with today’s action: “one, to reinstate the workers; two, that the workers be recognized with the union; and three, that they have workplace protection.”
Employees of the Marciano Art Foundation weren't allowed in when they showed up for work Friday. In fact, no one was.
Following their decision to unionize, employees received an email that they were being laid off effective Thursday, citing low attendance the past few weeks. However, that came as a surprise because entry and parking are free of charge.
"It's actually very scary that they're so against something that would make our lives better and enrich and enhance the foundation by having happier workers. Some works in there are multi-million dollar works. When you compare that to how much they would be able to pay us, there's no comparison," said Raul Arzate, who has worked at the Marciano Art Foundation since its opening.
Last Friday, the museum’s six dozen “Visitors Services Associates,” who were tasked with overseeing galleries and educating visitors, announced that they were forming a union to negotiate about issues surrounding scheduling, low wages, family leave, and job security. On Tuesday, they received an email informing them that the museum had indefinitely shuttered due to low attendance, and that they would all be terminated.
A post on the museum union’s Instagram called the move a “gross obstruction of workers rights.” On Thursday, workers filed an unfair labor practice charge withe the National Labor Relations Board, and the foundation is currently under investigation.
“We’re here to work! We want to work!” shouted Eli Petzold as he stood before the locked gates of the Marciano Art Foundation. He was quickly joined by a crowd of almost four dozen people who chanted, “Let us in! Let us in! Let us in!”
Petzold and his colleagues, former docents and visitor services workers at the museum, staged a small but vigorous protest in response to the Marciano Art Foundation’s abrupt decision this week to lay off nearly six dozen workers in the wake of a unionization attempt. This was followed by an announcement on Wednesday that the foundation would close indefinitely.
Several dozen of the laid-off employees, along with supporters (including workers from other museums), showed up at the locked Marciano on Friday morning, some bearing pickets that read “Shame” and “Union Now.”
Labor organizers in Los Angeles have accused the Marciano Art Foundation, a private museum, of violating federal law by dismissing dozens of employees after they announced that they wanted to form a union.
In a charge filed on Thursday with the National Labor Relations Board, the organizers wrote that the foundation “has illegally discriminated against its employees by laying off employees en masse and/or closing its facility.”
The charge, filed by District Council 36 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, asked that the foundation be required to reinstate the employees, recognize and bargain with the union and reopen the museum, which was closed this week.
Tell the Marciano family to respect workers' rights by joining workers on Black Friday to demonstrate outside of Guess stores and demand MAF workers be reinstated. *SIGN UP* [1] to join an event near you!
Tell the Marciano family to respect workers' rights by joining workers on Black Friday to demonstrate outside of Guess stores and demand MAF workers be reinstated. *SIGN UP* [1] to join an event near you!
Tell the Marciano family to respect workers' rights by joining workers on Black Friday to demonstrate outside of Guess stores and demand MAF workers be reinstated. *SIGN UP* [1] to join an event near you!
Tell the Marciano family to respect workers' rights by joining workers on Black Friday to demonstrate outside of Guess stores and demand MAF workers be reinstated. *SIGN UP* [1] to join an event near you!
