ARCHIVES OF LEAD STORIES
May 12, 2005
Museum guards fight for better pay, benefits
Jeremy Schwab
As visitors flocked to the Museum of Fine Arts
on a recent Sunday afternoon for the Art in Bloom event, members
of the Museum Independent Security Union met them with a display
of protest signs and an offer of flyers conveying their plight
as they engage in contentious contract negotiations with the museum.
The guards’ three-year contract expired March 18, and MFA
Director Malcolm Rogers is pushing to eliminate health, retirement
and overtime benefits for the 115-member union, said union President
Michael Raysson.
“This is the first time they tried to get rid of health
and retirement benefits,” he said.
With the contract being extended from negotiation meeting to negotiation
meeting, tension is high for the guards, roughly half of whom
are African American, Caribbean or Latino.
The union, which represents all but four or so of the full- and
part-time guards at the museum, is fighting for a pay raise and
to retain the benefits the MFA wants to cut.
Union members say the museum could afford to maintain their benefits.
“Why not sell probably just one painting?” union member
Mary Berry, 57, of Dorchester asked wryly. “That would take
care of us.”
The MFA is conducting a capital campaign to raise $425 million,
$180 million for its endowment, $180 million to expand the building
and the rest for contingency, according to spokeswoman Dawn Griffin.
Griffin denied that the museum is trying to get rid of all health,
retirement and overtime benefits, but would not say what the MFA’s
demands are.
“That is not what the museum is doing,” she said.
“From the beginning, we had an agreement we would negotiate
at the table and not through the media.”
Guards, who are paid between $11 and $13 per hour, complain that
during his more than 10-year tenure Rogers has reduced the number
of full-time guard positions, creating in their place part-time
position.
Raysson estimates that roughly 60 percent of the guards were once
full-time. Now, he estimates 40 percent are full-time. The number
of guards, meanwhile, has not changed much, he said.
“The number of people there is basically the same as 10
years ago,” he said. “It may vary by two or three.”
Part-timers do not receive health or retirement benefits, say
union members. But some are asked to work close to 40 hours a
week.
Guards can work such long weeks and still be considered part-time
because, in their contract, their status is based on how many
base hours they are scheduled for each week. Overtime hours are
not counted in determining a guard’s part-time or full-time
status. Anyone working under 30 hours is considered part-time,
according to Raysson.
Part-time guard Carlos Oviedo of Roxbury said he is often required
to work long weeks without benefits.
“I am part-time, but I have been working over 40 hours since
I started,” he said. “Most of us part-timers work
over 40 hours sometimes. It is not a good policy. In reality,
I am a full-timer, so I see a contradiction there. We should get
health benefits, vacation and sick days.”
Union members say that the proposed benefit cuts together with
the trend toward part-time work threaten them economically.
“We want to have over-time, because we work functions and
things,” said Rose Lewis, a part-time guard who is Wampanoag.
“The price of living goes up every year.”
So far, contract negotiations have made little progress, despite
some support for the union from elected officials. Sen. Dianne
Wilkerson, state representatives Gloria Fox and Byron Rushing
and city councilors Chuck Turner and Felix Arroyo were reportedly
drafting a letter to the MFA supporting the security guard union’s
position.
“Neither side has budged hardly at all,” said Raysson.
“They budged ever so slightly on retirement. They just said
they would be willing to bargain on retirement benefits if it
comes up.”
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