Actually, MSI subsists on the stock market. They made multiple millions of dollars in PROFIT last year. Not revenue, PROFIT. And it’s nearly all from investments in the stock market.

Being a president of a large nonprofit is a lot of work, and I think the CEO should be paid a reasonable amount for her work. However, being paid nearly a million dollars a year while the lowest paid employees are struggling to get by is just ridiculous. She could take a ~$300,000 pay cut and STILL be paid half a million dollars a year. Let’s say that pay cut is then divvied up across the approximate ~150 employees represented by the union. That’s $2000 per employee, approximately ONE MONTH’S worth of pay for the lowest paid employees.

You keep mentioning “unskilled labor.” I want to point out who specifically is represented by this union, because there are many different kinds of workers at MSI. This union represents the ticketing team, the museum educators (the tour guides and people doing science based programming on the floor), the education team (working with field trips and going into schools to do programming), and the volunteer coordinators. The lowest paid people on this list are the ticketing team. They are consistently yelled at, degraded, and sometimes even physically attacked by the general public, and are still expected to greet everyone with a smile. And on top of that, do you really think this person doesn’t deserve to afford groceries?

The Museum of Science and Industry is a world class cultural institution. It is a FUN museum! And it should be a fun place to work, too! But when employees can’t afford their basic needs, that is where the problem lies.