The Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) Boston laid off 33 workers, a 6.3% staff reduction, the institution announced on Wednesday, January 28.
MFA Boston Director of Communications Karen Frascona confirmed in an email to Hyperallergic that the layoffs, which will take effect on Friday, will impact 16 union members. She noted that a range of roles were affected, spanning “curatorial to operations to high-level management,” and that 23 vacancies were also eliminated.
The museum “welcomes meeting with the Union and plans to schedule a preliminary bargaining session as soon as possible,” Frascona said.
On behalf of the MFA Boston union, Local 2110 UAW representative Chelsea Farrell told Hyperallergic that the unit was “deeply concerned” about the effect of the layoffs on affected staff and remaining workers.
“Workloads at the Museum are already high, and cutting back on the very staff members who make the MFA, Boston such a great institution is a blow both to the affected individuals and to the institution itself,” Farrell said.
MFA Boston Director Pierre Terjanian, who assumed the role last July following Matthew Teitelbaum’s 10-year tenure at the helm, told the Boston Globe that the layoffs were a necessary measure as the museum faces a $13 million projected deficit. Terjanian said that salaries and benefits make up 55% of the institution’s annual budget, and that the staff reduction would save approximately $5.4 million overall.
The Globe also reported that the museum intends to sell a sizable plot of land in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, that would have housed a center for its collection.
The MFA Boston union formally organized in 2020 after a mass staff reduction of over 100 employees in light of the coronavirus pandemic quarantine, and conducted a day-long strike amid stalled negotiations in 2021. The first contract with the museum was officially ratified in 2022, securing salary increases, improved transportation and retirement benefits, and workplace diversity training among other bargained concessions for over 200 employees.
Now, the union is planning a meeting with the museum to discuss possible retention, and to “ensure that if there are to be layoffs of rank and file workers, that there be shared sacrifice from Museum leadership,” Farrell said.
Paul McAlpine, who worked in public services and collections management in MFA Boston’s libraries and archives for over 28 years, told Hyperallergic that he was among the 16 union staff laid off.
“I don’t know how I’m gonna survive this,” he said in a phone call, explaining that since the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) Act in 2020, he’s been consistently making penalty-free withdrawals from his retirement fund to pay monthly bills.
“Now, I’m out of a full-time job, I can never retire, and as of tomorrow, I have no health benefits — I just got a medical bill,” McAlpine said.
The layoffs at MFA Boston come in the wake of staff cuts at cultural institutions across the country, including the Guggenheim Museum, the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, and the Brooklyn Museum.
Among those affected by the MFA Boston cuts, according to a petition circulating on social media, are Marina Tyquiengco, the museum’s first curator of Native American Art, and Nadirah Mansour, its inaugural assistant curator of Islamic Art. Frascona did not immediately respond to Hyperallergic‘s inquiries regarding these staff members.
McAlpine told Hyperallergic that “it’s a sad day for the city of Boston.”
“The biggest thing in operating a museum is to respect the staff who care for the collection, and respect the public to come through the door, and respect the late artists whose work is being cared for,” he said.
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