Labor - Management Relations 365
actively involved with the AFL - CIO Department for Professional Employees.
Actors, doctors, engineers, journalists, librarians, musicians, nurses, per-
forming artists, athletes, teachers, university faculty, and attorneys are some
of the examples of professional employees represented by unions ( http://
http://www.dpeafl cio.org/ ). The United Auto Workers, Local 2110, Technical,
Offi ce and Professional Union, represents employees with thirty contracts
covering over thirty thousand workers in universities, publishing, museums,
law fi rms, and other offi ces. It represents teachers, secretaries, administra-
tors, editors, computer operators, librarians, museum curators, typesetters,
and graphic artists, among many others. Local 2110 has taken a lead in
organizing women and workers in New York nonprofi ts who have never
been organized before. It has won benefits such as child care, flex -
time, job classifi cation, domestic partner benefi ts, and family leave. It
represents workers at Columbia University, New York University, the
American Civil Liberties Union, the Museum of Modern Art, Techni-
cal Career Institutes, Barnard College, Teachers College, the National
Council of Churches, Bronx Museum of the Arts, and the New - York
Historical Society.
As this book is being written, educators, facilitators, and costumed
interpreters at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York City
are in the process of organizing. They lead tours of the tenement, edu-
cate visitors about the immigrant and labor history of the Lower East Side,
and portray the historical fi gures who once lived in the tenement. They work
on a per - diem basis with no guaranteed hours and no benefi ts. They do
not receive regular raises, even to keep up with the cost of living. The
employees have decided to form a union with Local 2110 of the UAW
in order to bargain with the museum management over these and other
issues ( http://2110uaw.org/tenement_museum.htm# ).
Other arts groups associated with the UAW are the National Writers
Unions and the Graphic Artists Guild. The staffs at the New - York Historical
Society, the Whitney, the Guggenheim, and the San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art are also unionized. The Florida Orchestra averted a strike in
its fortieth anniversary season. The musicians, who were working without
a contract, and management disagreed over the pay scale and length of
the season. The orchestra board proposed cutting salaries by 8 percent.
The orchestra had a defi cit of $ 665,000 and anticipated losing $ 550,000
in state and local government grant money. In December 2007, the musi-
cians voted to ratify a three - year contract. The musicians ’ base salary was
reduced, but they will receive raises in years two and three of the contract.
The season has been cut by four weeks plus a week of paid vacation in