About Us

We are excited to announce our union: Seattle Art Museum Workers United.

As SAM Workers United, we are uniting across departments and affiliating with the Washington Federation of State Employees/AFSCME Council 28. We are proudly unionizing alongside tens of thousands of cultural workers across the country, and our VSO peers at SAM, who have organized in recognition of the systemic issues within arts and culture institutions. 

A supermajority of us who are union-eligible support our union. While we have filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board today, we ask CEO Scott Stulen and the SAM Board of Trustees to proactively respect our legal right to unionize by granting us voluntary recognition. We are also urging leadership and the Board to demonstrate their commitment to equity by respecting our legal right to organize our union without facing intimidation or coercion. We ask that they do not waste resources on distributing anti-union propaganda, continuing to retain anti-union lawyers, or holding mandatory anti-union meetings. 

Our solidarity is a movement to improve working conditions in alignment with SAM’s mission, vision, and core values. The challenges we face, such as unsustainable wages, subpar health benefits, and siloed, top-down decision-making, are undeniable, systemic, and have persisted across administrations. Change at the top alone will not solve our root problems.

Our intention is to strengthen the relationship between leadership and employees to accomplish the following: 

  • Ensure we earn sustainable and respectful wage
  • Establish “just-cause” protections rather than “at-will” employment
  • Improve healthcare, PTO, retirement benefits, and retention incentives
  • Establish transparent, collaborative decision-making across the museum
  • Create a workplace culture of inclusion, trust, and accountability 

We ask you to join our collective campaign for change. Individually, our voices hold little sway with leadership, but when joined together we can speak powerfully. Putting our trust in one another ensures that we, the true heart of SAM, have a seat at the table now and in the future to advocate for our collective needs and the betterment of SAM for all.

If you are eligible to be in our union, we ask that you...

  1. Show your commitment of support and Sign Your Union Authorization and Membership Cardavailable here
  2. Sign our Letter to the Board and CEO
  3. Read this Beck notice