More than 150 members of the Tate staff will go on strike from 26 November to 2 December, The Guardian has reported. The action comes after the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS – one of three unions that represents the staff at the gallery) organised a ballot, in which 98 percent of members voted in favour of striking on a turnout of more than 87 percent.
Workers across all Tate galleries were offered a salary increase of between two percent and three percent, a raise PCS has called ‘insulting’. A survey conducted by the union earlier this year found that 72.2 percent of their members working at Tate Galleries said their current salaries were not enough to meet basic living costs.
‘With many Tate directors receiving six-figure pay packages and five-figure bonuses while staff are condemned to in-work poverty, it is no wonder we have seen such an overwhelming vote for strike action’, said PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote. The Tate’s Board of Trustees’ annual report for 2024–25 shows that the institution director’s, Maria Balshaw’s, banded remuneration of £220,000–225,000 is 6.5 times the median remuneration of the workforce.
A Tate spokesperson said, via The Guardian, that ‘Tate has made careful savings this year in order to invest in staff pay and still achieve a balanced budget. This includes a three percent salary increase for most roles – including all employees on the lowest three pay bands – while directors are taking a zero percent increase to help balance the overall costs. It is only by creating and maintaining a sustainable financial model that we can continue to invest in our staff in the long term.’
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