I was a member of union for ten years - for the last year  I was a union
rep.  This union represented the rights of museum workers (and others) at
Harvard.  It was intent on working closely with both the university and
workers in order to ensure a productive working relationship.  The Union
negociated contracts, improving salaries and benefits, worked to improve
communications between workers and management.  When people had problems
with supervisors they could call on the Union to assist by giving advise or
by sitting in on meetings.  It was a wonderful feeling to know you weren't
alone.

Terri McFadden
Museum Education Coordinator
Beverly Historical Society
117 Cabot Street
Beverly MA 01915
Tel. (978) 922-1186
Fax. (978) 922-7387
[log in to unmask]
www.beverlyhistory.org

-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf
Of Jay Heuman
Sent: Saturday, September 14, 2002 5:46 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: unions in Museums

James,

Since when has the focus of unions ever shifted away from fighting for
workers' rights?  The ideals - and reality - of what my
great-grandparents fought for during the 1920s and 1930s has not been
lost: fair pay, fair hours, fair treatment for and of all workers.

That few workers unionize today is indicative of workers' fears that
they will lose their jobs if the union fails, and they are left in the
spotlight as the "trouble-making union organizer."  It's also evident
that Big Business learned that if they "give" some control to the
employees (i.e., "employee-owned" corporations), the polarization of
'management versus workers' is minimized . . . thereby limiting the
desire for unionization by linking workers' profits to business profits.
If the workers go on strike and productivity drops, so too do
stockholders' (including the worker-owners') profits.  It is
capitalism's concession to a communist ideal which no cannot survive
very well in a free market economy.

Just my point of view . . .

Sincerely,

Jay Heuman
Visitor & Volunteer Services Coordinator
Joslyn Art Museum
2200 Dodge Street, Omaha, NE, 68102
342-3300 (telephone)   342-2376 (fax)

"You can't lock up art in a vault and keep it frozen for posterity. Then
the artist is betrayed, history is betrayed."
(Walter Persegati)


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> On Behalf Of James Schulte
> Sent: Friday, September 13, 2002 7:29 pm
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: unions in Museums
>
>
> Do we really need unions. They were good at one time,
> however now they have really lost their actually focus

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