Jerry et al,
I have not been following this full thread so do not
know if this has been mentioned. Guidestar.org is a website with
information about nonprofits. They have on their site, and can be accessed
for free, the IRS 990 forms for nonprofits that are required to be filed every
year. In the past these were required to list compensation of all staff
over $50,000 if I remember correctly, which made them very useful, but that was
changed a few years ago to $100,000 I believe. So this may not be helpful
for any job that approaches minimum wage, but certainly is for the higher paid
positions. I have visited there dozens of times in advising friends of the
potential salary expectations at a number of museums. Of course, none of
this says what is being offered for a specific open job, but it at least
gives an idea of what happened in the past. If no one is listed on
the 990, that means the CEO/Executive Director and everyone else is being
paid less than $100,000 so you have knowledge that their pay scale is
rather low. If one or several staff are listed, it is an indication that
their pay scale is reasonable. I am shocked that an organization would not
tell a prospect what the salary range was if they called. I have called
numerous times, again on behalf of friends, and was told every time. No
one wants to waste their time or the time of the organization if it is too
low.
Marc
Marc A. Williams, President
MS in Art
Conservation, Winterthur Museum Program
Former Chief
Wooden Objects Conservator, Smithsonian Institution
Sent: Friday, July 16, 2021 9:31 AM
Subject: Re: [MUSEUM-L] Positions available at KID
Museum
Ms. Eyl,
I’m sorry that you interpreted my tone as
hostile. When I asked you (a representative of your organization) to
please not waste everyone’s time by not listing compensation levels I was asking
the organization to be transparent. I had assumed actually that the
postings without compensation levels was perhaps just an oversight by the KID
Museum without ill intent. However, now that I know that the KID Museum
has a specific policy to not list compensation I feel that the job posts are
even more problematic. I am happy to read that you too agree that
transparency of salary information is necessary. However, I find it sad
that somehow my tone is deemed hostile yet the policy of a museum to not be
transparent should be seen as acceptable or just simply ignored. That the
KID Museum has a policy indicates to me that leadership has had conversations
about this and have actively and specifically decided that the museum will not
be transparent about pay scales. That seems to be far more hostile than
the tone I expressed in my post. It is wasting the time of both the
applicant AND the museum staff to post a job, have applicants draft resumes,
collect resumes, setup interviews, interview, and then offer a job to a person
only for them to find out it doesn’t pay a living wage.
Just so
you know, I passed along your job announcement to people who I thought might be
interested only to be told by them that they didn’t see the point in applying if
they had no idea what the pay was.
I wish you the best of luck in
filling the positions. I suspect that you will get plenty of applicants
and that you will no doubt hire people to fill the positions. I hope that
your organization will rethink its policy to not list compensation levels with
the goal of not only being more transparent but doing the right thing for you,
your future employees, and for the museum field as a whole.
Thank you for
starting the dialog with the job postings. It is a clear indication that
our field has a long way to go. I fear we have emerged from the pandemic,
during which time many museum employees lost their jobs, to be faced with
institutions bent on remaining as clouded and unresponsive to the needs of
employees as ever. The fact that the KID Museum’s pay structure is as you
state, “competitive in the market” still doesn’t mean the museum pays a living
wage. Good people are leaving the museum field in droves (some forced to
and other electing to leave) because the field can’t sustain a work force that
needs a living wage. That is a big problem. A problem that we are
all responsible for and need to address.
All the
best,
Jerry
Jerry
Foust
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