“Exhaust All Options”: City Council Holds Hearing on Brooklyn Museum Layoffs

In a special oversight hearing at New York City Hall this morning, February 28, Brooklyn Museum workers, union representatives, and City Council members called on the institution to “exhaust all options” before implementing its recently announced mass layoffs affecting 47 full- and part-time employees. Earlier this week, District Council 37 Local 1502 and UAW Local 2110 — the two unions representing workers at the museum — rallied outside the institution with hundreds of supporters to protest the sweeping staff cuts, which leadership has described as inevitable in the face of a $10 million budget shortfall.

“ Myself and my colleagues were shocked and saddened that the place we love had eschewed its long-time values for a DOGE-esque consolidation of power,” said June Lei, Local 1502 secretary and full-time producer at the Brooklyn Museum, who testified at the hearing. “Today, it is balancing its budget on the backs of workers who lose their benefits, salaries, pensions, and union membership.”

The Committee on Civil Service and Labor, chaired by Council Member Carmen De La Rosa, called today’s hearing to examine whether workers have been fairly treated by the museum and assess the layoffs in light of the institution’s financial circumstances. The committee has also encouraged individuals to submit written testimony online.

At the start of the hearing, De La Rosa put questions to Laurie Cumbo, commissioner of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA), which provides about $10.5 million in funds to the Brooklyn Museum. These city subsidies cover about 20% of the museum’s operational budget including approximately 50% of DC 37 salaries in roles including security, maintenance, and collection care, with the museum responsible for the remainder.

De La Rosa asked Cumbo whether DCLA requires recipient institutions to provide financial contingency plans to prevent worker reductions.

“DCLA expects all of its constituents to adhere to all applicable laws in this regard,” Cumbo responded. “ The city is proud to support institutions that choose to work with strong, organized unions and to set a minimum base rate of pay through their own negotiations.”

De La Rosa reiterated her question: “ I get that, but do you all require contingency plans when we’re at the point where layoffs are being considered?”

 “We do not have a contingency plan requirement,” Cumbo responded.

“What about requiring institutions receiving city funding to follow specific labor standards or engage in good-faith negotiations with unions before implementing layoffs?” De La Rosa asked.

“We require that all groups follow all applicable federal, state, and local law,” Cumbo said.

Emphasizing a drop in private and corporate contributions, Cumbo spoke in defense of Brooklyn Museum leadership who she said “prioritized the long-term health of the institution.”

Both unions, however, have expressed frustration over the museum’s failure to consider alternatives, such as furloughs or buyouts.

Hyperallergic reported on the expected layoffs on February 6 and the cuts were confirmed during an all-staff meeting at the museum the next day. The unions said they were given only a few days’ notice before the decision was announced.

In a statement to Hyperallergic this week, the museum maintained that it is complying with the 30-day notice period because the layoffs will be effective March 9. But in a February 28 letter from Museum Director Anne Pasternak to De La Rosa, copies of which were provided by a museum representative at today’s hearing, Pasternak characterized the layoffs as “unavoidable.”

Neither Pasternak nor other members of the Brooklyn Museum’s senior leadership were present at the hearing.

In response to Hyperallergic’s request for comment, a spokesperson said in an email that the Brooklyn Museum continues to negotiate with the unions regarding terms such as severance for laid off employees and the exact list of positions to be cut.

“As we have indicated previously, the museum explored all meaningful options before turning to layoffs. Furloughs do not address the structural deficit. This step — as difficult as it is — is necessary as we scale the program and rebalance the budget,” the spokesperson said.

At the hearing, DC 37 Executive Director Henry A. Garrido issued a sharp rebuke of the Brooklyn Museum’s handling of the current deficit. In 2016, he said, the museum pursued alternative avenues, such as voluntary furloughs, instead of leaving workers in the lurch.

“There is no reason why 47 people should be losing their jobs until we exhaust everything possible, and we’re committing to our union and our brothers and sisters in other unions to fight, because those workers deserve no less,” he said in his testimony.

“It seems to me that all options have not been exhausted,” Council Member De La Rosa agreed.  ”I reiterate what my colleagues have said here: Layoffs are the absolute, should be the absolute, last resort.”

Garrido also questioned the timing of the cuts, given that the city’s budget process ends in June.

“Why not wait to see what we could have done?” he asked. “If we had a way to reduce that $10 million [deficit] to, say, $6 million, then perhaps you didn’t have to lay off 47 people, perhaps you could have reduced that to 20. And then we could have tried to figure out how to go from 20 to zero.”

The committee discussed alternative funding strategies to alleviate the shortfall, such as charging for programming like the museum’s popular First Saturdays event, which was paused for two months as part of Pasternak’s cost-saving plan. (Cumbo countered that monetizing the event would “change the dynamics” of the museum, which maintains a pay-what-you-wish policy for all visitors.) District 5 Council Member Julie Menin also suggested taking advantage of funds from the New York City Tourism and Conventions Bureau to amp up marketing efforts that could bring in paying visitors before resorting to “draconian measures” like layoffs.

Both unions also alleged today that the museum ignored contract stipulations such as seniority and strategically chose to cut employees with the intent of weakening their bargaining units’ strength.

“It’s not only that they’re laying people off, which is bad enough, but they have used these layoffs in a targeted way, weaponized this in a targeted way,” said Maida Rosenstein, director of organizing for Local 2110.

“Our union chairperson has been laid off, a curator at the museum who’s been there for years and who is in the midst of a major deaccessioning project,” Rosenstein said, referring to Liz St. George, an assistant curator in the Decorative Arts department, who also testified today. “This makes no sense except in the context of union-busting.”

A spokesperson for the Brooklyn Museum said it “disagrees with this assertion in the strongest terms.”

Local 2110 and Local 1520 have filed National Labor Relations Board charges against the museum.

The question of whether the museum had provided sufficient financial information to justify the cuts also came up during the oversight hearing. In the all-staff meeting on February 7, Pasternak informed workers that the museum would be implementing a hiring freeze, programming reductions, and salary cuts of 10% to 20% for senior employees to address a “significant cash flow problem.” Still, she said, the layoffs were necessary because salaries make up 70% of the museum’s operating budget.

In her letter to De La Rosa, Pasternak attributes the museum’s financial shortfall in part to the city’s “failure to keep pace with funding DC 37 salaries, requiring the Museum to cover a much larger share.” Baseline funding, Pasternak wrote, remains stagnant at “about the same amount it was in 2015” despite rising inflation.

But amid the fallout of the layoff announcement, some workers and union leaders are asking why they’re taking the fall for what they characterize as leadership’s own fiscal mismanagement.

“The Museum spent millions of dollars on consultants in ‘rebranding,’ hiring outside consultants, and creating very high-paid management positions,” Rosenstein said. Last year, the Brooklyn Museum unveiled a new logo and visual identity to mark its 200th anniversary.

In his written testimony, Garrido accused the museum of “placing the burden of this financial deficit on the backs of [workers],” some of whom earn as little as $30,000 a year.

“Here’s what we know: The annual compensation of the director of the Brooklyn Museum, north of $1 million, exceeds the combined salary of all 19 of our members losing their jobs,” Garrido said. (In 2023, Pasternak made $1,012,633, according to the most recent public filings, which included payments that were deferred during the pandemic. Her current salary is $715,000, the museum told Hyperallergic.)

“If everyone at the museum who made above a quarter of a million dollars a year took one week’s unpaid furlough, we could save jobs,” Garrido said.