Civil Disobedience at the de Young Museum

On Friday September 7th 2012 people from the local union SEIU 1021 blocked the entrance to San Francisco's most famed art museum. 19 were arrested, and the attendees at the museums “Friday Nights at the Museum” were also greeted with loud chants and singing and civil disobedience.

The De Young museum was originally opened as a “Fine Arts Building, and was constructed in Golden Gate Park for the California Midwinter International Exposition in 1894.” It houses over 27,000 collections and has seen some of the worlds most talented and creative artist’s works for at least a century.

According to Anna Bakalis, from SEIU 1021, the management at that museum is intimidating, and using “anti-worker tactics” to make cuts to the salaries of the “least paid workers” in that museum.

So members of the Service Employees International Union marched in on the museums Friday nights at the museum event and chanted and sang and blocked the entrance in hopes of urging management to stop withholding information used in collective bargaining, and stop lowering wages of the lowest paid workers, and stop giving the managers raises.