20 October 2015
Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Cymru, the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, where staff are on strike today (20 October). Photo Philip Halling. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Commons.
As further deep cuts to the arts budget loom, museum and gallery managements across Britain are seeking to bolster each other in reducing staff and pay. In Wales, staff at the National Museum (Amgueddfa Cymru), which is spread across a number of sites, have been staging a series of strikes since July – including today – resulting in closed venues.
Management wants to scrap anti-social hours payments for weekend working. Talks at ACAS in September led to improved funding, but it was not allocated to weekend staff. As at the National Gallery in London, their union PCS came up with an alternative plan for savings. As at the National Gallery, this was dismissed.
Sign up or be sacked
Management insisted on its own plan being put to the members, who rejected it. It was then replaced by an earlier one with inferior conditions. Management then refused a request for further talks at ACAS, and is now telling staff to sign up to their proposals or be sacked. Hence today’s strike, which will include a rally at Cardiff Bay to raise awareness.
• At the National Gallery the interests of capital have disposed of an entire workforce which loves its place of work. Gallery assistants there have been outsourced to a private security company which has no such sentimental ties with the artworks they protect. TUPE conditions of transfer may temporarily reassure PCS members, but both they and the public they serve know that something valuable has been lost. The fight will go on