Actually, museums' associations have researched issues of
professionalism and salaries extensively.

For example, the AASLH in the early 80s put out Wages of History", an
excellent discussion with supporting research of the two ends of the
working spectrum, the profession and the field. The Canadian Museums
Assoc. also engaged in a comprehensive salary survey in the late 80s as
has a local Art Gallery Assoc. in Ontario. The AAM put out a Financial
and Salary Survey in 1971.  I do believe that data of this nature will
also be in survey data compiled by the AAM more recently or perhaps by
the Institute for Museum Services.

Unfortunately, the data of these studies is time-bound to an extent and
replication of the work expensive. Let me, however, repeat one of the
ideas in the AASLH work which is that they saw two dramatically
different ends of the spectrum in heritage work. The profession were the
museums that had higher budgets, a variety of fairly good funding and
higher salaries. The field were those smaller museums struggling with
patchy funding and quite low if any salaries since many were volunteer
run in the main.

I think we do need to think in terms of a spectrum of salary for museum
work of which there may now be three major categories.  Many still do
exist in the category of the "field"; we've all seen those low salary
levels advertised in Aviso.  At the other end, there are some museum
people leading the major institutions who are making competitive
salaries with industry and which is part of the corporatist environment
being created in our field. I think I know what the highest paid museum
director makes in Canada and it is slightly higher than the Pres. of the
University of Toronto which is at the quarter million level. Most
directors of leading institutions would make over $100,000.  Would this
not be the same case and more in leading institutions in the U.S. I
recently saw a job add for Northern Ireland which translated to $90,000
Can.

Unfortunately, in the same institutions the wage gap down to technician
or assistant level is extreme.  Meanwhile, there are those making a
"decent" or "good" wage  in the middle range.  But they are not free of
change such as layoffs, collapsing of jobs, or outright freezes or
rollbacks to their pay.  We in Canada are operating with a general
unemployment figure of about 8.5% while those  in the US are about 4.9%(
approximations only.) Those of you in other countries may like to add
your data here. What the rates are for museum and related work I would
like to know. It's too bad that we don't have the same value that hockey
or ball players do to society.

I would be interested in your perception of the fairness of your pay
levels and work conditions.  It may interest you to know that most
surveys of public as to the importance of the arts and the public role
in funding reveal quite positive results. Why doesn't this translate
into higher pay levels?  It seems to me that some of the engorges around
professionalizing and unionizing the field of work of the 70s and 80s
would be well placed at this time.  My own guess is that we will or are
undergoing some major pressures towards contracting out some of the
essential services of museum work, like collections management, research
and education. I would get your business cards ready.

Lynne Teather,
Assoc. Prof.
Museum Studies Program,
Univ. of Toronto.