In this blogcast, Burnes Center Senior Fellow Seth Harris spoke with Maida Rosenstein, the organizing director for the UAW local 2110, and three museum employees she worked with-- Jordan Barnes, Karissa Francis, and Erika Wentworth. Listen to what they have to say about their experiences, founding unions, partnering with the local 2110, working to ratify their unions' first contracts with their employers, and much more.
Listen to the podcast here.
Maida Rosenstein is the organizing director of the United Auto Workers, Local 2110. She has been involved in graduate worker campaigns at Now York University and Columbia, at a host of nonprofits and museums, and in higher education. For more than 30 years, she has strongly promoted membership-led, grassroots union activity, in contract negotiation campaigns, new organizing, and political action.
Jordan Barnes is a library assistant and union chairperson at the MFA Boston, and studied at Northeastern University, where she completed her M.A. in World History. She was a member of the bargaining committee in 2022, when unionized employees of the MFA ratified their first union contract after 18 months of bargaining.
Erika Wentworth is a graphic designer and project manager at the Whitney Museum of American Art's in-house Graphic Design Department. Erika was an important member of the bargaining committee in the ratification of the first contract of the Whitney's 180-member union. She had been working hard for over a year, and her efforts paid off back in March 2023.
Karissa Francis worked at the Whitney Museum of American Art for five and a half years as a full-time visitor services employee. She was involved in starting the union at the Whitney, and after they won their election, she left her job there to join the UAW local 2110 as a staff organizer. She has been working there since 2022.
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