Open Letter to Labor Servicing the Culture Industry

I’ve worked as an art handler in New York, both as a freelancer and on the payroll with benefits. The two modes of handling art both share the constant threat of losing one’s job if any mistakes are made or if any hesitation to accommodate what is requested—or more often expected—is revealed. Freelancing is less and more stressful. Freelancing allows for a lifestyle where literally 10–14 hour days (like many others, I’ve done 16ers, some overnighters) can be packed into a week during an exhibition change, with weeks off to “focus on one’s own work.” Constantly flirting with poverty, as most freelancers are, a seemingly large chunk of money is obtained that vanishes rather quickly after coping with the realities of New York rent. A pattern emerges after freelancing for a while where the free time is often spent worrying and networking for the next job. Cultures develop over a period of time amongst crews. They get to know each other and the people who staff the gallery fulltime, but when the gig is over, so is the connection to the gallery or the museum. God forbid a freelancer come down with the flu or something worse; if you don’t work, you don’t get paid. The freelancer also has to be always accommodating and ready to work when the phone rings. If not, the phone may not ring again. Freelancers are constantly juggling the phone ringing too much, overbooking and having to say no; or more often, the phone doesn’t ring enough. Freelancers expend a lot of time and energy (labor) in a constant hustle when they are not presently working. A certain degree of satisfaction and camaraderie can come from working on a crew to pull off an insanely large installation under pressure in a short period of time, but at the end of the day, in spite of his/her specialized skill, in spite of the fact that most hold MFAs (that they’ve taken on a lifetime of debt for), the freelance art handler is the lowest rung on the ladder of the art world, barely worthy of eye contact.

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Occupy Sotheby's!

Rally at Sotheby’s Thursday, Oct. 20 @ 1:30pm 1334 York Ave (b/w 71st & 72nd)
6 train to 68th St.-Hunter College
Leave directly from #OccupyWallSt!
Buses depart from Liberty Pl b/w Trinity and Broadway at 1 PM!

Things are peachy for the 1%. Sotheby’s made $680 million in 2010 and gave their CEO a 125% raise—he makes $60,000 a day. 

Not so for the 99%. Sotheby’s demanded concessions from their workers and then locked them out of work. The workers have been locked out for 11 weeks.

Come support the locked-out workers.
Tell the 1%: STOP CORPORATE GREED
Keep in touch with our campaign. Text 917-657-7890 with your email to get added to our mailing list and receive updates on where the campaign is going. 
Sponsored by OWS Labor Committee: owsnyclabor@gmail.com



From "A Curator"

Sotheby's has locked out workers in the context of immense corporate profits. Details can be gleaned elsewhere.

I find myself working with Sothebys in my job, and am disturbed to know I am doing business with an anti-labor organization.

I would respond favorably to a challenge to propgressive sellers of art (collectors, museums and galleries) to insist that a portion of the premiums Sotheby's collects in auctions be redirected to the Teamsters or AFL/CIO. This can be insisted upon in giving consignments. If an entity usually pays 5% sellers premium, they can now insist that 2% of the 5% goes to AFLCIO. Or they can negotiate a lower premium and send the difference themselves. Given that Christies will usually match Sotheby's negotiated terms  in order to get
consignments, Sotheby's will lose consignments, or lose cash.

I am not in a position to PROPOSE this idea, but I am in a position to RESPOND to it if some individual or group can begin it.

Contacting high-level collectors might result in a much better response than you imagine. Many of them are real progressives....