10,000 signatures reached
To: National Museums Wales & The Welsh Assembly
Fair pay at National Museums Wales
Please join our campaign to prevent drastic pay cuts to the lowest paid staff at National Museum Wales, where management are removing payments for weekend working imposing 12-15% cuts to front of house staff.
We are calling for:
• Management to re-open negotiations with Unions and halt their imposition of pay cuts to staff.
• Management to Compromise on a number of points put to them from PCS union alleviating the impact to the lowest paid staff.
• The Welsh Assembly to review its cuts to Museums and Culture and ensure Management Do Not Attack the terms & conditions of staff.
Why is this important?
Out of 600 staff working at National Museum Wales across seven sites, the front of house/visitor services constitute 300 or nearly 50% of the total. They deliver the services that allow the museums to remain open to the public, from cleaning and maintaining the sites to delivering guided tours, demonstrating traditional crafts and ensuring the safety of the National Collections. In total the seven sites host 1.6 million visitors a year, ensuring the cultural and historical heritage of Wales and bringing huge economic benefits to the country.
Front of house staff are predominantly the lowest paid in the museum. Many work as many as 47 weekends a year for which they are paid an allowance to compensate them for the ant-social effects this has on their family and social life. After five years of cuts and pay freezes the Museum Management are now seeking to remove these payments which can amount to £2,000 - £3,000 for full-time staff. Many members are already classified as low-paid and face the risk of being pushed into poverty by these cuts. Members face the risk of using food-banks to survive and the increased likelihood of child poverty amongst their families.
PCS are the largest union within this section of the workforce and represent 80% of Front of House staff. They have been fighting management proposals for nearly 18 months and believe it is wrong that those who can least afford it, should shoulder the burden of cuts while Senior Managers enjoy effective pay rises. We believe that pay cuts to the lowest paid is a social justice issue that everyone should be concerned by. Our campaign highlights the real impact that austerity has, with those least able and most vulnerable to cuts facing the heaviest hardship.
