New York City Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani just signed an open letter supporting roughly 1,000 workers at the Metropolitan Museum of Art who are voting to form a union. If they succeed in January, the Met will become the largest unionized museum in the country.
The timing matters. On December 18, Mamdani joined a roster of incoming and current New York officials—including Comptroller-Elect Mark Levine and Manhattan Borough President-Elect Brad Hoylman-Sigal—in backing the push. The letter, released by the United Auto Workers (UAW), frames museum work as essential to the institution's mission: "These workers, coming together to fight for better wages, healthcare, and job security fulfills the ethos of what we mean when we say, 'New York is a Union Town.'"
The proposed union would cover curators, conservators, educators, and retail staff—roles that keep the museum running but have historically been underpaid relative to management. The Met already has two smaller unions representing security and projectionists, but this would be vastly larger. Local 2110 of the UAW, which would represent these workers, has pointed to "long term pay inequities, lack of job protection and ever-increasing workloads" as the core issues. The union already represents workers across the city's major cultural institutions: MoMA, the Brooklyn Museum, the Guggenheim, the Whitney, the New Museum, and Shed.
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The pandemic cracked open a conversation about museum pay that hadn't fully shifted in decades. When institutions closed and reopened, the gap between what management earned and what frontline staff made became harder to ignore. Workers saw institutions flush with donor funding while their own wages stagnated. At the Met specifically, leadership has greenlit major capital projects funded by private donors—money explicitly earmarked for buildings and collections, not staff.
The vote happens January 13 and 15. The Met's official response, via spokeswoman Ann Bailis, was measured: "We respect the right to seek union representation and are proud of our longstanding relationships with DC37 and Local 306 IATSE, which represent a large segment of our staff." Translation: the institution isn't fighting the election, though it's not cheerleading either.
What happens next will likely ripple through the cultural sector. If the Met unionizes, other major museums will face the same pressure—and the same choice about whether to negotiate or resist.
