The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) laid off 29 full- and part-time staff members in a 7.5% reduction to the institution’s total employees, the institution announced today, May 7.
In an Instagram post, the SFMOMA Union said that 26 of the eliminated positions were represented by the unit and alleged that the museum gave no notice ahead of the layoffs. The museum claimed in a press release shared with Hyperallergic that union members were offered “enhanced [severance] packages” as stipulated by their collective bargaining agreement.
SFMOMA eliminated nine filled part-time and 20 full-time positions and cut 13 unfilled positions, according to an announcement published on the museum’s website. A museum spokesperson told Hyperallergic that both union and non-union staff were let go from across the museum, but did not specify the exact numbers included in those categories. The spokesperson said that no departments were completely eliminated.
The SFMOMA Union called for museum personnel to wear all black during an all staff meeting scheduled for 9:30am Thursday, May 8. “No layoffs. Cut from the top,” the union said in a post. Representatives from the union’s bargaining team met today with museum leadership, according to the unit, to begin to “fight back on these unjustified layoffs.”
The SFMOMA union has not yet responded to a request for comment.
The museum cited “financial challenges to SFMOMA’s operating model,” including a $5 million structural deficit exacerbated by a post-pandemic drop in tourism, as catalysts for the cuts, and claimed that the pandemic “altered attitudes toward social gathering and cultural engagement in lasting ways.” On Monday, the nonprofit Visit California predicted a 0.7% decline in the total number of visitors in the state from last year’s figures and a 9.2% decline in international tourists.
SFMOMA said in its Wednesday announcement that it would work to eliminate its deficit and adapt to the “changed environment.”
In March, the museum received the largest corporate grant in its history for a single exhibition — $1.5 million from Google’s philanthropy offshoot for a Ruth Asawa retrospective, which the institution acknowledged in the layoff announcement as producing “strong gains.” Last month, SFMOMA pulled in a reported $3.7 million in donations at its annual fundraising gala, Art Bash, which usually raises upwards of $2 million.
Other popular San Francisco museums, including the Asian Art Museum, the de Young, and the Legion of Honor, were considering layoffs in March in response to a mandate by the former mayor asking city departments to reduce general expenses by 15% to address an overall deficit of $876 million. Some of the layoffs would most hurt security personnel.
Museums across the country have reported similarly abrupt layoffs — nearing 10% of their total workforces — in the past months, including the Guggenheim Museum and the Brooklyn Museum, which later paused its terminations following protests and intervention from New York City Council. The museums cited growing deficits, post-pandemic dips in museum attendance, and changes to international tourism as reasons for the terminations.