August 21, 2020
To Madeleine Grynsztejn, our fellow MCA colleagues, and supporters,
We write this statement to provide an update, with necessary nuance, regarding recent events at the MCA. We write in the absence of institutional transparency both internally and publicly.
One month has passed since MCAccountable put forth our collective demands for accountability and meaningful action to uproot white supremacy and racial injustice at the MCA. In our July 16 public letter, we gave two deadlines for response: July 24 to meet the most urgent demands (#1–3), and July 31 to commit to demands #4–13 by providing a concrete plan and timeline, including public accountability measures. To date, MCAccountable has received no direct response from Pritzker Director Madeleine Grynsztejn or any other member of MCA leadership, no invitations for discussion or bargaining, and no requests or notifications for extensions of deadlines. Most importantly, no demands have been met.
Since we published our letter, the museum has opened and stayed open. MCAccountable has gathered over 950 signatures (including 80 current staff and TCA members) in support of our demands, we have demonstrated outside the museum, arts writers have covered our struggle, and we heard from numerous artists and others who have reached out to express solidarity and support. Also since we published our letter, Pritzker Director Madeleine Grynsztejn has sent four all-staff communiques regarding the museum’s reopening and actions taken toward making the MCA an anti-racist institution (emailed on July 17, July 24, August 7, and August 12; a near-identical version of the July 24 communique was also published without context on the museum’s “About” page). None of these communiques have directly named MCAccountable or our demands, though the most recent communique indirectly purports to meet them.
In the most recent email, on August 12, the director announced a "move to a full-time staffing model" for VE staff, with "current front-facing part-time positions" being "converted into full-time positions.”
This framing alarmingly omits crucial facts and considerations that show this decision is not “the best outcome” for staff, as the director assured. The day before this communique went out to all staff, the current 28 part-time Visitor Experience (VE) Associates were notified that only 8 new full-time positions would be created—and that all part-time positions in VE would be terminated as a result (with the caveat that part-time special events work might become available again with the re-introduction of rental events at some indeterminate future point). The news of this consequential shift was hastily presented to VE Associates, in individual no-notice phone calls as well as in two short-notice group meetings with VE managers, VE Director Clinton Shepherd, Audience Experience Director Gina Crowley, Senior Director of Operations Amy Buczko, and Deputy Director Lisa Key present. VE Associates were informed they had about one week to apply for these full-time positions and that VE leaders hoped to have these new positions hired by September 7 (meaning less than a month’s notice about lay-offs). VE Associates were also told that whomever was not interested in or selected for a full-time position would be let go with a “separation package”—with no details about what compensation that entailed, other than that packages would be “fair and equitable.” (On August 19—the same day that they were initally given as a deadline reapply for the full time positions—VE Associates were informed this “separation” pay would reflect two weeks of work plus an additional $300-700 depending on years of tenure.)
During individual conversations with VE leaders, at least one VE Associate was told that this change in staffing was a way of “meeting the demands of MCAccountable.” We reject this association. We do so especially because our clear demands have been so ignored—including those about pay, benefits, and hours for ALL staff, and a “commitment to restructuring pay scales more equitably” between associates and executives (demand #13). Of course, through reallocating salary resources, the museum could both create full-time positions and improve the wages and benefits of the existing part-time VE jobs. But nowhere do we suggest that 70% of VE Associates be laid off, or even that full-time positions be created, especially ones that have the effect of laying off a majority of employees in a majority-BIPOC department. Despite the claim of “considerable input,” VE part-time staff were not consulted about this decision to determine if such a change was desired. Many VE Associates are unable to apply for the full-time positions due to educational, professional, or other commitments and the “separation packages” offered will not ensure the livelihoods of those workers.
The omission of such consequential details in the August 12 communique is likely to mislead non-VE staff (and perhaps the public and museum patrons). The decisions made over the past two weeks are not truly equitable to all staff and, we believe, seem to functionally retaliate against, divide, and disrupt the organizing of junior-level staff toward real equity and racial justice. This is part of a larger pattern of retaliation and gaslighting. Just last year, after VE staff had organized to improve their hourly wage from $12.50 to $15, the number of VE staff was reduced by approximately 50%. Included among those staff who advocated for the wage increase were part-time associates who were hired on a temporary basis for the Virgil Abloh exhibition and led to believe they might be hired on long-term after the exhibition ended. Some of those workers left by choice, but others were let go after weeks of misleading (mis)communication and a lack of transparency from VE leadership about the future of their employment at the MCA and how, or if, they would be able to become a permanent VE associate.[1] Additionally, several special events VE Associates were forced out of their jobs as a result of new increased hour requirements that were implemented after the wage increase. It strikes us as no coincidence that the MCA would now suddenly move to eliminate 70% of VE Associates’ jobs after a coalition of workers, in which VE is well-represented, have publicly demanded better conditions for themselves and for their colleagues.
The institution has taken great pride—both internally and publicly—in their work to keep all staff employed through the pandemic. It is true that the MCA has gone to significant lengths to ensure that the majority of employees keep their jobs. But it is also telling that even among its own employees the institution is concealing the realities that associates in VE, contract workers, and other part-time staff have been and are continually facing, including around drastic reduction in hours. Transparency and accountability for these decisions is vital, especially if past harms and inequities are to be meaningfully addressed. In a cruel irony, back-to-back in the August 12 all-staff email, the VE restructuring was announced to all staff alongside mediated “racial healing” sessions:
Secondly, I have listened to you and it is clear that we need to develop new internal forums that can provide an environment to safely challenge assumptions, raise questions, and suggest actions that can expedite the MCA’s transformation into an anti-racist organization with real impact in the community. So this week, instead of an All Staff meeting, I am convening smaller staff conversations [...] Again, the idea of leaning into a mediator as part of our work is a direct outcome of listening to staff suggestions – thank you.
The “staff suggestions” referenced seem, at least in part, related to an MCAccountable demand (#5), with at least one crucial difference—that “[t]his mediator should be vetted and hired by the members of the Anti-Racism Core Team.” In specifying this, we hoped that such a decision would be collectively informed by the representatives that our colleagues across the museum entrusted to guide anti-racist work. Yet, the Anti-Racism Core Team as a body was not consulted in the process. While the hired mediator’s biography was provided, the rationale for their selection and who was involved in making the selection was not. How such a need is met matters as much as the what, especially given that our desire for a mediator arose as a result of defensive, callous, and generally disappointing responses from those in leadership roles, when met with criticism in previous communications, including all-staff meetings. The lack of transparency and lack of inclusion of the museum’s own Anti-Racism Core Team in anti-racism-related decision making processes—including those leading up to both the major change in VE staffing and the introduction of racial healing mediation—perpetuates a paternalistic power structure and disregards the harms done to staff that necessitated mediation in the first place. It also reflects a larger pattern of taking “urgent” action in all the wrong ways. Earlier this month, departments were given less than two weeks’ notice to each create a departmental “Equity Plan” or “IDEA Plan”—with no guidance or format provided and no suggestion as to how individual departmental plans would ultimately be used or connected. Leadership has since rescinded this deadline but has not yet assigned a new deadline nor communicated any additional information or instruction. We must ask: Why was the development of plans for this essential work so abruptly and haphazardly assigned? If created through such a swift, unbalanced, and perfunctory process, who do such “Equity Plans” even serve?
The work of justice and anti-racism is urgently important, as it has been for a very long time. But it must be done thoughtfully, through just processes, with real input from those most impacted, and without further negative impacts on those already most exploited. As a collective, we remain deeply disappointed by the lack of response to our initial internal concerns, as well as our subsequent public concerns; the nature and transparency of communications since; and the continued insufficiency of action, even when granted our offering of a blueprint to begin. If you will not commit to trusting the experience of and responding to staff within the institution you direct, especially when those staff thoughtfully and collectively alert you to institutional problems, then how can the public and other stakeholders trust you to listen to them? If you cannot commit to making meaningful changes with the power you have, then why are you still at the helm of this institution?
Madeleine, we request a response to our original letter, demand, in writing, by 12pm Central on Tuesday, September 1, 2020. These original demands still stand.
We call upon our fellow staff and any other supporters reading this to continue contacting the director to help amplify these demands until they are met.
In Solidarity,
MCAccountable, a coalition of staff