We were fired without cause. 27 museum educators take legal action against the National Gallery in London.

In London, a group of twenty-seven museum educators have taken legal action against the National Gallery for wrongful dismissal: the workers who have decided to sue the museum are artists and art historians who served at the major London museum until October 2017. Not only that: the twenty-seven educators are also complaining of discrimination on the basis of length of service, age, and gender, and are asking to be recognized as museum employees (with all that that entails in terms of minimum wage, vacation, sick leave, and severance pay) and not as outside professionals called in under contract. This is because the workers, they say in a statement, were on the National Gallery’s payroll, were taxed at source, were required to dress gallery staff passes, and were required to attend training courses and staff meetings, and received formal reports on their activities.

The educators, in order to cover the expenses their cause requires, then launched a crowdfunding campaign on the Crowdjustice website (a platform that helps fund legal litigation), raising so far, one month into the campaign, the sum of more than 37,000 pounds (against a goal of 65,000). The group includes “historical” National Gallery employees, who have also been in service for more than forty years, while the more “inexperienced” ones have ten years of service behind them, and during the hours spent at the museum they have been involved in educational workshops, lectures, and courses.

“People who work in the arts,” the lawyer who is supervising the educators, Marie van der Zyl, explained to the online newspaper Hyperallergic, “demand certainty about their rights, and it is crucial to ensure that they are properly framed.” One of the twenty-seven workers, James Heard, the one with the most seniority (he has worked at the National Gallery for an impressive forty-five years), said, “we rise up to ensure that those who work in the arts are treated fairly, and to protect the teaching professions at the heart of the museum. The United Kingdom is extremely proud of our national museums, and it is vital that educators are properly protected.”

The National Gallery, however, rejects the allegations, claiming that the layoffs are the result of a reform of the museum’s education department. “The changes,” they explained in a note also sent to Hyperallergic, “reflect the Gallery’s strategy in developing its programs to incrementally reach new audiences and to enhance digital technologies to amplify engagement.” And specifically, the National Gallery adds that “the entire group [of workers who sued it, ed.] had been consulted both as a group and through individual interviews about the change, sometime between October 2017 and January 2018. The jobs were offered to all of our freelance service providers last year. We still have vacancies, although unfortunately not all members of the group have shown interest.” The Gallery concludes by saying that it acted within the law and in a fair manner.

All that remains now is to await the verdict of the English courts: the court confrontation will be held in November.

Pictured: part of the group of 27 educators suing the National Gallery in London.

We were fired without cause. 27 museum educators take legal action against the National Gallery in London.

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