Displaying items by tag: union

Last Spring, the Canadian Artists’ Representation (CARFAC) took to the Supreme Court following an eleven-year battle with the National Gallery of Canada to reach an agreement on copyright laws and artist fees. Now it looks as like it has landed an important victory. The collective — which serves Canadian artists much like a union, and calls itself “the national voice” of Canada’s professional artists — has been issued a unanimous decision from the bench that allows an appeal on behalf of artists.

Long battling the NGC, CARFAC regards this decision to represent a landmark victory. This appears especially true because the court typically takes two or three months to decide its ruling, but as the Ottawa Citizen notes, “the judges made their ruling for the artists within minutes of hearing arguments from both sides.”

Lynn Orr, the former curator of European art at San Francisco’s Fine Art Museums, is suing the institution for illegally dismissing her. Orr claims she was let go for supporting a union demonstration and protesting financial deception. Orr has worked for the museums for 29 years and served as a curator for 11 years until her firing on November 20, 2013.

The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday, April 16, 2013 in San Francisco superior court. In her claim, Orr stated that the museums’ human resources director told her that she was being dismissed because of her performance but she had never been confronted about her work in the past. Orr did say that museum officials criticized her attendance at a demonstration held on September 7, 2013 at San Francisco’s M.H. de Young Museum, which was organized to oppose the museums’ management’s stance in labor negotiations.

Orr’s lawsuit also touched on an incident during which she and other employees claimed that the museums were undervaluing a painting that was to be shipped overseas, which she considered to be deceitful. A fellow employee who objected to the situation was fired within a few months of the incident. Orr is seeking unspecified damages from the city of San Francisco and the private corporation that runs the museums.

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, which includes the modern-leaning M.H. de Young Memorial Museum and the neoclassical California Palace of the Legion of Honor, has been involved in a number of recent uproars. The tumult has included tense labor negotiations, firings of senior staff member such as Orr, and scathing criticism of the museums board’s president, Diane Wilsey.

As part of its Civil War in America exhibition, the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. is exhibiting the John Hay copy of the Gettysburg Address through May 4, 2013. The manuscript went on view on March 22, 2013 in the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building. Admission is free and open to the public Mondays through Saturdays.

The Gettysburg Address is one of the best-known speeches in American history. Delivered by President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War on November 19, 1863 at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, PA, the Gettysburg Address took place four and a half months after the Union armies defeated those of the Confederacy at the Battle of Gettysburg. The Battle of Gettysburg, which saw the largest number of causalities in the Civil War, is often considered the war’s turning point. Widely recognized as a literary masterpiece, the Gettysburg Address conveys in some 270 words the principles upon which the nation was founded, honors the men who had lost their lives in battle, and asks all citizens to renew their commitment to freedom and democracy.

The John Hay copy of the Address is the second of five known manuscript drafts. Lincoln personally gave the copy to Hay, one of his two secretaries. His other secretary, John Nicolay, is believed to have the first draft, known as the Nicolay copy. Hay’s descendants donated the Hay and Nicolay copies of the Gettysburg Address to the Library of Congress in 1916.

Civil War in America, which opened on November 12 2012, commemorates the 150^th anniversary of the Civil War and includes diaries, letters, maps, song sheets, newspapers, photographs, drawings, and artifacts that reveal the complexity of the Civil War through the individuals who experience it firsthand. The exhibition is on view through January 1, 2014.

After a confrontation that lasted 10 months, staff members at San Francisco’s Legion of Honor and M.H. de Young museums agreed on a new contract with their employer, the Corporation of Fine Arts Museums (COFAM).

When COFAM and the Services Employees International Union (SEIU) began working to replace the contract that expired in October 2011, accusations of stubbornness, obstructionism, and disregard for the museums’ fiscal stability abounded on both sides.

Electricians, security guards, graphic artists, retail staff, and office administrators voiced their dissatisfaction with COFAM. The dispute peaked last May when Eric Mar, the San Francisco city supervisor who once served as a shop steward of the SEIU, wrote a piece for the San Francisco Examiner supporting the union, complaining about wage freezes, and arguing that the fact that COFAM requires workers to contribute to their own healthcare coverage was unfair. Another peak in the argument was reached this past August when many union members formally approved a strike. On September 7^th, protestors gathered outside of the de Young during the museum’s popular event, “Friday Nights at the de Young Museum” catching the media’s attention.

Two weeks after the protest, COFAM stated that they reached a “tentative accord” with the union. The agreement provided 100 members with a 12 to 18 percent pay raise during the three years that their new contract is in effect. That raise is in addition to a three percent pay increase upon signing the new contract and another three percent raise on January 1, 2013.

While employee contribution to health care coverage was a huge point of contention in the dispute, most workers will still be required to make minimal payments. Employees will pay on a sliding scale that starts at $25 per month for employees, $50 for one dependent, and $75 for families.