Go David, go David!!

Why is it the director's with low pay expect the rest of the musuem workers to accept their low wages?   Justifying someone else's poverty wages with your own does not alleviate the problem, it adds to it.  If we settle for the old adage of  'It doesn't pay much but I love what I do' we add to the mentality that what
we do isn't worth much. Take any one of the trade's, carpentry, metal working, plumbing is a great example.  Plumbers can make anywhere from $100-$400 an hour.  Does their work have more intrinsic value than a museum worker? (any plumbers out there, please don't hate me, I'm just using you for an example) Do they have
to spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours at college?  No, they are just organized and they believe in the value of their work.  They are willing to extend the extra effort of unionizing, which may not always be the best choice but it is one that insures that they will be able to support their families.
Museum employees, with the scarcity of available jobs and the seeming overabundance of workers, have allowed museums to raise the standards of job requirements without adding any pay increase.  Is it that we are so happy to find a job in our field of study that we are willing to take any pittance for it? Possibly.
Instead of replying that we all have
'crappy pay', maybe looking at ways to change the standards would be more productive.  We need to create camaraderie not draw battlelines among ourselves.

STUD David Andrews wrote:

> How dare you be "somewhat tired" of the wage discussion?  These are very
> real issues which will affect the number and quality of people working in
> the museum field, yourself included.  Don't rationalize your low pay. or
> anyone else's, as the way of the museum world; in Joe Hill's words, "Don't
> mourn--organize."  A field whose members are scrabbling to be regarded as
> professionals ought to begin by paying professional-rate salaries.  At
> least at the level of schoolteachers, accountants, pharmacists, and other
> less exalted professions, none of whose members are asked to donate
> volunteer time in hope of a paying job while meanwhile working another job
> to support themselves and their families, plus pay off student loans which
> seem more and more a vain waste of money and academic work.  How dare you,
> madam?  J'accuse!
>
> On Sat, 1 Aug 1998, Elizabeth Stith wrote:
>
> > I'm a Director and believe me I get what everyone, beginners and Olivia, would term "crappy pay".  I am single with no spousal  income to rely on.  I do get a large portion of my health insurace paid by my board but not all and I have a retirement plan which I was able to stay in when I left my previous position.
> >
> > The other side of this is that I know more about the budget than most of my board members and I am well aware that they pay me as well as they can and have given me raises as soon as they were able to do so.
> >
> > I think that putting a dollar value on anyones degree is an exercise in futility and I'm getting somewhat tired of this discussion.  I apologize for adding to it.
> >