Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Workers of the AKG Buffalo Art Museum held a conference Wednesday morning with updates on where they stand in their campaign to unionize. On Tuesday, the workers filed documents for an expedited election to unionize with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
"We launched our campaign to organize on November 16 and we hoped that the museum as a public institution would respect our right to organize. Leadership's messaging, both to the public and our staff has been that they respect our right to organize, but their actions have directly contradicted that," says Sophie Goodwin, a Visitor Experience Associate at the Buffalo AKG.
"They've doubled down on keeping Jackson Lewis, a notorious union-busting law firm that's been hired both by Amazon and Tesla. They've ramped up their covert anti-union campaign through active surveillance of employees, stricter enforcement of existing rules, and they attempted to emotionally manipulate staff as well. The clearest sign of their union-busting [tactics] has been their hiring of Jackson Lewis.
Natalie Hayes, a barista at AKG says that the workers hoped to have a non-NLRB election or have the museum just recognize their union due to the fact that their fellow employees, security guards, are excluded from joining the union due to antiquated laws of the NLRB. However, due to the stalling from their employers, it has required them to take a quicker approach.
"In order to expedite the process for us, we think that going the National Labor Relations Board route is the best, because we're guaranteed an election within 21 to 28 days," Hayes explained.
This union represents about 75 workers in the facility, comprising of three departments: food and beverage, visitor experience, facility planning.
Other than some workers not getting water breaks after being on their feet for extended periods of time, Hayes mentions that there is currently no pay equity across workers at the museum and that would be a priority during negotiations.
"It's not too late for us to for the AKG to change course and make this a fair process. If they really want to respect our right to organize, they can fire Jackson Lewis today, they can sign the fair election principles that were presented to them, and they can agree to an election in a timely manner," said Lydian Standeford, a Visitor Experience Associate.
"During an organizing campaign, employers are responsible to maintain what's known as laboratory conditions," noted Goodwin. "They cannot change the conditions of the workplace from how it was before the organizing campaign started and afterwards. So even though there might be existing rules in something like the handbook, if those rules were not getting enforced, to start enforcing them after an organizing campaign is not maintaining laboratory conditions and is anti-union behavior. And that is something that we've seen examples of since our organizing campaign has started, laboratory conditions have not been maintained by leadership or management."
You can hear the full conference in the player above.