In a message dated Fri, 5 Nov 1999 12:06:26 PM Eastern Standard Time, Troy Segal <[log in to unmask]> writes:


> Why shouldn't an institution have to "pay for all it gets"? Don't most
> employers? If a business ran the way a museum does--getting by with free
> labor--it would be called exploitation.

Museums and to some extent, NPOs, have a lot of tasks that a lot of businesses don't have.  How many businesses need a core of docents or information desk people that have to be around 7 days a week?  Even a minimum wage, that would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to staff not to mention the cost for insurance and other benefits.  What museum has that kind of money?  What kind of person is going to go through the training to make minimum wage as a docent and stick around long enough to become competent at it?  Not many.

Most busineses use temps to do mass mailings and other little office tasks that volunteers in museums do.  That again is a lot of money.  I made like $8/hr as a temp to stuff envelopes and I know the agency was making at least that plus fees for hiring.  That gets expensive as well.

And a lot of the things you get volunteers to do, you can't hire people to do or the people you could hire aren't going to do them as well.  When I coordinated volunteers at the Smithsonian, I had a core of retired, little old ladies who were happy to stuff envelopes, enter data into a computer or answer the phones a few hours a week and not get paid for it.  They also did a very good job at it as well.  As a former temp, I know that a lot of the temps I worked with on the stuffing jobs were barely competent and probably temped because they didn't have enough job skills to be even a full-time receptionist.

Plus with a volunteer corps, I knew I could call them the day off a major project or knew they were coming in on a certain day so I had work for them to do.  It's a real pain in the ass to have to call temp agencies who have to round up people (which they may not be able to do last minute) on an "as needed" basis.

Plus my volunteers stayed around for years.  I didn't have to train them that often and they knew their way around the office.  With temps, you have to train them every time they come in and constantly check on them because you never know who you are going to get or how much they are going to goof off.  For routine office work, my volunteers were much more reliable and "cost effective".

>I believe that a museum always has to
> "break even"--or risk losing its status as a nonprofit.

Non-profits can make money and a lot do.  It's what you do with the money you make and how you make it that makes them different from for-profits.  I think that's something that museum professionals need to learn.  And just because you are for-profit, doesn't mean that you are just out to make money.

> Other nonprofits benefit from volunteer labor--but it's a supplement to, not
> a replacement for, paid staff.

And again, most museums I know use volunteers as suppliments.  Those who want to work more get more work.  I don't know any volunteers that are being forced to work as full-staff who don't want to do it.

> And it's not true that the institution doesn't benefit at all from paying
> people. You could argue that by engagng a sufficient number of professionals,
> and by paying them what they're worth, museums will find their departments
> more efficiently run, more productive, more forward thinking, and more
> creative--which will result in better exhibits, and a better
> reputation--which all helps in getting more funding.

And I know a lot of paid staff members, esp. government-types, who sit on their butts all day (museums and other sectors as well).  Just because someone is paid, doesn't automatically make them an efficient employee.

> I think everybody loses--because museums won't invest in personnel or
> resources, but stagger along in a makeshift, make-do manner. We don't have
> "both sides benefitting" now, we have the institutions benefitting--at the
> expense of the workers, both current and those of the future, who can't find
> employment.

Again, I know many places that used to have paid staff and had to cut them because of loss of funding, grants or what not.  Volunteer work is just that, volunteer.  If someone is acting as staff and not being paid, I see it as their fault, not the insitutions as no one is forcing them to be in that position.  If you're not getting anything out of volunteering and just doing it because you think you need the work experience, quit.  There are plenty of non-museum jobs that will give you comparable experience along with a pay-check.  IF you enjoy volunteering and find it a valuable learning experience, then continue doing it.  I know few people in the museum world that are being paid what they're worth or don't do plenty of stuff that techinically isn't a part of their "job description".

Deb

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