On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 1:00 PM, Therese Quinn <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> There have long been groups of museum employees organizing for fair wages
> and better workplace conditions, and there are also some unionized/civil
> service museums, such as the Smithsonian; across the board, unionized and
> public sector workplaces have notably better wages than those that are not

Even at the Smithsonian, museum workers make considerably less and get
stuck at pay grades far lower than other Federal employees of
comparable education and experience. A friend of mine is effectively
blocked out of a federal government career after over 15 years at the
Smithsonian in the same pay grade (GS-9). She can't move elsewhere in
the government because no one will hire her since she's stayed at the
same pay grade for so long. She can't advance either because there are
no positions to which to advance. Yet college graduates who start out
in the federal government as admins make the same pay grade that she
does with a masters and 15+ years of experience. That's not right
either. She should be at least a GS-12 if she started as a GS-9 and
worked her way up in a typical federal career ladder fashion but the
museum careers don't have that type of career track in the Federal
government. The other sad part is that if she wants to advance in her
career, she'll have to go outside the Smithsonian and take a big
paycut and big benefit cut as well. A huge catch-22.

Deb Fuller

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