OUTSIDE GALA, MOMA EMPLOYEES PROTEST HEALTHCARE CUTS

Hyperallergic’s Benjamin Sutton reported that scores of Museum of Modern Art employees—carrying signs that read “MoMA, Don’t Cut Our Healthcare” and “Last Year: Matisse Cut-Outs. This Year: MoMA Health Care Cuts”—turned up at the museum’s annual Party in the Garden last night to protest a decision to increasingly shift healthcare costs to museum staff—a decision that led to a breakdown in contract negotiations. “We’re expressing our collective revulsion for the medical givebacks they’ve put on the table” said Danny Fermon, a MoMA librarian and chairperson of the museum’s Local 2110 union division.

Chanting and passing out flyers, the protesters gathered near the entrance to MoMA’s education and research building, and then divided into two groups, headed respectively to the VIP entrance on Fifty-fourth Street, and to Fifty-third Street near the doors of the museum’s film building, where trustees were entering for the evening’s celebration.

“Quite honestly, we have a lot of people working many, many overtime hours, the majority of which are uncompensated, and so we already have people who are working more than they’ re being paid for and we do it because we really love this work—nobody gets a job at a museum to become a millionaire,” said Victoria Wong, a library assistant at MoMA.