Workers at the Centre Pompidou staged a one-day strike on Monday 16 October ahead of the museum’s planned closure for a five-year renovation course to the Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers–designed building in 2025. Workers are concerned for their job safety. In a statement posted on Twitter, CGT-Culture, the cultural arm of the general confederation of labour, one of five major national trade union confederations in France, the union said they were worried today, but also for tomorrow and the horizon of 2030, when the museum is slated to reopen. The closing will affect over 1000 workers, from front of house and security staff to conservators. Conversations with the French Ministry of Culture are ongoing.
Strikes at the Pompidou are not new, and the last time staff at the Pompidou walked out over pay concerns, in 2017, the museum remained closed for 12 consecutive days. The Whitney Museum’s unionised workers took 16 months to ratify their contract negotiations this year, following walkouts and demonstrations, including at the 2022 Whitney Biennial opening. ‘Something that’s quite unique to cultural institutions is that funders are very sensitive to public perception’ says Faiza Mahmood is an industrial relations officer at the UK’s Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers Union (RMT) in Megan Day’s article for ArtReview on unions in cultural institutions, ‘How to Unionize the Artworld’. The pressure on the Pompidou has meant the award ceremony for the Prix Marcel Duchamp had to be moved to Parisian auction house Artcurial. The winner was Palestinian-Swedish artist Tarik Kiswanson.
