Page 27 - Studio International - November 1971

PASTA MOMA,

or the strike-

bound Modern

Jeannie Weiffenbach

i Picket line, the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
August—September 1971

This Summer a strike action was taken by
members of the curatorial, programme,
administrative, and office staff of the Museum
of Modern Art, New York. The strike was not
over wages or any of the concerns usually
associated with unions but was actually a
manifestation of an ideological conflict, which
had been developing for over a year and a half,
between the staff of the Modern, and its
management, the Administration and a
powerful and influential Board of Trustees.
The issues reflect the identity and financial
problems that are currently putting stress and
strain on the internal architecture of most
privately-supported American museums. The
specific issue at the Modern was bad-faith
bargaining.
The Professional and Administrative Staff
Association of The Museum of Modern Art
(called informally PASTA MOMA) is a union,
the first union of museum professionals in the
United States. (It is Local No. I of the Museum
Division in the National Council of the
Distributive Workers of America.) It is a
union without compulsory membership, but
which last June won the legal right to represent
some 200 members of the Museum's staff
through election procedures as set up by the
National Labour Relations Board.
In the middle of contract negotiations, and
after a promise to discuss fully with the
Association any contemplated layoffs, on
4 August the administration announced
substantial programme cuts and thirty-six
dismissals (plus seventeen outside the
jurisdiction of the Association), sixteen with an

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