After 16 months of negotiations, workers at Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia have approved their first collective bargaining agreement.
The workers, who are part of AFSCME Local 397 (District Council 47) announced the Nov. 24 victory in an Instagram post. Contract highlights include paid parental leave, which will be offered to employees for the first time in the museum’s history.
The union’s first contract also gives immediate raises of 13.3% to the lowest-paid bargaining unit members and raises of 8%-11% to all other job classes. Additionally, workers secured three more guaranteed raises of 3%-4% of the course of the four-year contract, longevity raises for years of service, reductions in health insurance cost-shares, the ability to roll over vacation and sick time, and guaranteed preference for internal candidates for open bargaining unit positions.
“Museum and cultural workers have traditionally accepted low pay and precarious conditions as a trade-off for doing mission-driven work,” said DC 47 President April Gigetts. “But those conditions aren’t sustainable for people who need a paycheck to live. As museums become more racially and economically diverse workplaces, workers are increasingly demanding the same rights and protections as those in other industries.”
Workers at Please Touch Museum voted overwhelmingly to form their union in March 2023 and became Philadelphia’s first unionized children’s museum. During negotiations, workers fought hard to secure a fair contract, launching a petition that garnered over 900 signatures from community supporters.
Please Touch Museum United is the third Philadelphia-based union formed through the AFSCME Cultural Workers United campaign to secure a first union contract in the last two years. Workers at the Philadelphia Museum of Art approved their contract after a historic strike in October 2022 and members of Penn Museum Workers United approved theirs in June 2023.