Employees at the California Academy of Sciences voted to form a union — CalAcademy Workers United — on Friday.
The union vote comes after months of organizing efforts. Employees started planning to unionize in 2020, and in March of this year went public with their plan. Museum leadership announced they would refuse to recognize the union in May, triggering the need for a vote.
Curatorial assistant Marie Angel said layoffs and furloughs early in the COVID-19 pandemic compelled employees to start thinking about a union.
“There was a strong union-busting campaign from Academy leadership that included things like creating an internal micro-site with misinformation that was only viewable with an Academy email address."
Angel is now a member of the union’s organizing committee.
Last week, 77 percent of museum workers participated in the vote, more than three-quarters of whom voted in favor of the union.
More than 350 workers in all departments of the museum have now joined the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1021.
Union members will soon begin electing a bargaining team and hope to begin contract negotiations with management this fall.
