Dear colleagues:
I've been reading Museum-L for about 6 years, and periodically the
salaries topic comes up, the same discussions are brought out, and the
thread fades out again, only to recur. Lately the topic has been coming
around more and more often, and I think I know why - because IT IS A
REAL PROBLEM.
Yes, we know museum workers are underpaid. The question is do we accept
it, or work to change it. I suggest that this real problem needs to be
really dealt with by the profession as a whole. Culture usually requires
subsidy, either from government, or advertising - but in the case of
museums, this subsidy comes from the profession itself, in the form of
its workers consistently accepting less for their skills than they could
get elsewhere. In other underpaid arts fields, there is at least the
hope of an economic breakthrough, because there is ownership of
intellectual property, or performance - the play might go to Broadway,
the film might be picked up by Miramax, the book might make the
bestseller list. Not so in museum work - we hold the cultural heritage
of others in trust.
Once upon a time museum workers were people whose families had the money
to subsidize their interests. Then the field professionalized, and these
new, expensively trained workers, were expected to survive on the same
low salaries that prevailed. Their "passion" for their work drove them
to it, though it did not make economic sense. And it looked good when
the alternative was waiting tables, because there were few good jobs.
Now that the unemployment rate is so low, it makes less and less sense
to young workers to choose such a low paying field when other
opportunities beckon. This should be seen as a problem for the
profession - we need the best and the brightest minds.
Many of the complaints and many of the rebuttals have come from the
younger members of the list. They face the stark reality - and though
they may have "known" about the low salaries, they may not have felt
what that meant until they couldn't find a place to live, the car broke
down, and there was no insurance. And though some of them defend the low
salaries as necessary and not important to their sense of values -
surely they are assuming that it will get better as they gain experience
and move up the job ladder. Well, it may, or may not, and if the
profession doesn't deal with the REAL problem of low salaries, it won't
get better by much.
It will come to look like a problem when you are 40, trying to raise
children (or did you know that you chose the job over having children?)
on a low salary, wanting the best for them (like an education they can't
get from the marginal schools in the marginal neighborhood your salary
allows you), or maybe your spouse, with the better for-profit-sector
salary that has been subsidizing YOU leaves you, or perhaps you have
health problems (insurance, anyone?). And then maybe you are 65, and -
whoops! no pension! none at all! - have you been donating to your IRA
since you were 22, on your low museum salary?
Other non-profits DO find ways to compensate their workers. No one
expects lavish, but liveable is non-negotiable. Or should be. When
teacher salaries were low, it was a national disgrace, and something was
done, even though it was "unaffordable". Now compare what a teacher with
experience and a master's degree gets in salary and benefits, and what a
museum educator with experience and a master's degree gets. Done
laughing yet?
I don't have the answers. I'm not bitter, I chose this profession, have
worked in and out of museums for 22 years, I still believe in it, I
still stick with it. And I still think salaries are too low overall.
But I don't think there will be answers until it is acknowledged as a
PROBLEM that we should collectively pool our ideas to solve, and make a
commitment to upgrading museum salaries, by whatever means are
necessary. This is not something we should have to apologize for. It
will take creativity, and advocacy, and anger - but look at the other
impossible things we do in museums every day!
Carol Ely
Ph.D., Museum Consultant
Louisville
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