Dear Mr. Reynolds,

I am a part-time worker at the Science Museum of Minnesota in Saint Paul,
Minnesota.  My title is Visitor Assistant.  I started two years ago at $5.00
per hour.  I now earn $7.10 per hour.  No extra money is paid for working
weekends.  My responsibility is museum security and interpretation to
visitors, simultaneously!

According to your terms, I do site safety, opening and closing, giving
information to visitors (I call this last "museum education").  I even do a
minimum bit of cleaning of our exhibits.

All of the Visitor Assistants at our museum are part-time staff.  Most of us
must drive our own vehicles to work and we must pay the going rate to park
our vehicles.  Bus transportation is poor or nonexistent.  Transportation is
a big expense for us.  The museum does not help us in any way with
transportation expenses or reserve places for us to park.  We must hunt and
peck on our own for a spot; the museum does not make formal information
available to new hires about where parking is available.

I think the museum would attract much better interpreters and thus provide
better service to our visitors if it would hire us full-time with benefits.
Then turn-over would not be so high, and we would have the time to develop
high-quality interpretation.  We could also afford to buy month-long parking
contracts.

Sincerely,

Diane J. Peterson