Museum Pay (Again)

Maybe it’s the summer. Maybe it’s the heat, but among museum news-sharing folk the question of pay reared its head again last week. On AAM’s Museum Junction there was a question and several responses regarding pay for front line staff. One of the responses was from Michael Holland who posted a lengthy article on low pay on AAM’s Diversity and Inclusion page in February. In addition, blogger Paul Orselli, asked us all to take notice (again) of the need to post salaries with job announcements. You can read his full post here.

The initial Museum Junction question came from Mark Osterman at the Vizcaya Museum in Miami, FLA who asked about pay for “frontline staff,” and whether other museums use merit pay, bonuses or some other vehicle to increase wages for admission staff or part-time greeters. The two organizations who responded said they offer annual wage increases of between .01 and .03 percent on base salaries of $10.75 and $12.50.  Another question that Osterman and the two responders might ask themselves is whether their frontline pay is equitable?

We like to think Leadership Matters remains a stalwart voice for both better salaries and pay equity in the museum field. If these issues are new to you, consider for the moment that increasing salaries simply perpetuates whatever pay inequity already exists. Let’s say you work at a museum with a staff of 50, and a Latina woman and a Caucasian woman both work in the education department. Imagine the museum board arrives for its quarterly meeting and decides, based on industry trends and the fact that the organization had a very good year, to raise salaries across the board by 10-percent. Sadly, after the backslapping and texts to friends, the Caucasian woman and her Latina colleague would still likely have a salary gap of almost 13-percent because white women make a lot more than Latina women. And by the way, those percentages, which come from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, are compared to white men doing the same job. (We realize that’s an unlikely scenario because museum education departments are usually bastions of underpaid women.)

Michael Holland’s comment suggested, among other things, that museum salaries should reflect museum values, and that 21st-century salaries should permit staff to live in the communities in which they work. Which brings us to Paul Orselli’s piece which points out that organizations like AAM and AASLH need to require organizations to list salary ranges when posting job announcements. Orselli pleads with his readers to contact AAM and AASLH and ask that they change their policies. We agree, and we’ve said as much over and over since the start of this blog. In keeping with our tradition of suggestions for museum folk at all levels, here are some possible recommendations depending on where you find yourself in the field.

For Museum Service Organizations:

• Change your policies to require job announcements include salaries or salary ranges and be explicit in explaining why. You have an opportunity to educate and advocate.
• Museums and heritage organizations, zoos and botanical gardens are important institutions for a host of reasons, but they are not always workplace nirvana. Start publicly acknowledging organizations who are good employers and tell the field why.

For Museum Board Members:

• Know where your museum’s salaries fit in the annual AAM salary survey and, if appropriate, the AAMD salary survey, but remember that survey is but one data point to investigate. Look broadly across the nonprofit sector in your community/region/state at salaries for comparable job titles. Benchmark museums specific to yours in terms of budget size and discipline.
• Know how much it costs to live in your community. Use the MIT Living Wage Calculator to figure out if your staff can actually afford to live and work in the same place. If your organization can’t afford to offer the salaries it should, as a board member you should be fully aware how well your staff performs despite being underpaid.
• How often does your board discuss the human cost of running a museum?
• Do your museum’s salaries reflect your museum’s value statement?

For Museum Leaders:

• Know what’s going on. Use the AAM and AAMD salary surveys, and other survey data from across the nonprofit sector. Make sure you’re not underpaying. If you are, know why.
• Do your salaries reflect your museum values statement?
• Are your salaries equitable? If not, what is your role? Don’t let unconscious bias fester.
• Make sure salary is a part of all annual reviews.

For Museum Staff and Those in the Job Hunt:

• If you’re applying for a new job, do your due diligence. Know what it costs to live where you’re applying. Be prepared to say no if you can’t actually live on the salary offered.
• When you receive an offer, don’t say yes right away. Think it through. Negotiate. Know what you need.
• If you’ve done great work, say so in your annual review. Explain what your great work means. Ask for a raise.
• If there are opportunities to learn more about how your organization functions, take them. Serve on internal committees. Make an effort to understand your organization.
• If you would like to see salary information with job announcements, follow Paul Orselli’s lead and contact Laura Lott (AAM President and CEO) and John Dichtl (AASLH President and CEO) and tell them how you feel about salary transparency in job announcements.

Then tell us what you think.

Joan Baldwin

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