Workers at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) will strike across all four of the institution's London sites on October 29 and 30 in an escalating dispute over poverty wages and increasingly intolerable working conditions.
The action, involving union members at South Kensington,
V&A East Museum, V&A East Storehouse in Stratford and the Young V&A
in Bethnal Green, marks the first time the museum's entire London network will
be hit simultaneously by industrial action. It follows a series of September
strikes that exposed a growing rebellion among workers at one of Britain's
premier cultural institutions.
Behind the V&A's carefully cultivated image as a
world-class museum lies a workplace regime that workers have compared to an
Amazon fulfilment centre. The dispute first erupted at the newly opened V&A
East Storehouse, where staff reported being denied sufficient time for drinking
water and toilet breaks during shifts.
That workers had to organise strike action to secure what
should be the most basic workplace rights is a damning indictment of the
conditions imposed in Britain's cultural sector. Every Storehouse worker who voted supported industrial action, with turnout approaching 88 per cent,
reflecting deep-rooted anger over management practices.
Only after the threat of strikes did management partially
retreat, agreeing in August to provide two paid breaks per day. Yet this
concession addressed only the most visible symptom of a much broader crisis
confronting museum workers.
Across the V&A estate, employees have reported staff
shortages, excessive workloads and years of declining living standards. PCS
members voted 95.39 per cent for strike action with an 87.04 per cent turnout,
showing overwhelming support for a fight against management's offensive.
Workers have described severe workplace overheating, dehydration, and even
colleagues fainting on journeys home after shifts.
The scale of opposition became clear in September, when
about 700 workers, more than half the V&A's workforce, took part in strike
action that forced the closure of several sites.
The workforce's demands are modest. PCS and Prospect members
are seeking a 4 per cent pay increase and an uplift that would bring the
lowest-paid workers to £14.80 per hour, making the V&A an accredited Real
London Living Wage employer.
Management has portrayed these demands as unaffordable. Yet
PCS estimates the difference between its pay claim and management's existing
offer would be roughly £500,000 annually, a negligible sum for a national
institution.
Workers have every reason to reject museum management's
claims of poverty. The V&A holds around £72 million in reserves while
continuing to invest heavily in major capital projects. As workers have pointed
out, funding always seems available for new buildings, refurbishments, and
expansion projects, while employees responsible for keeping the institution
running are told they must accept further declines in their living standards.
The current dispute unfolds against the backdrop of years of
attacks on museum workers. Hundreds of jobs were lost during restructuring
carried out throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Real wages have since been eroded
by below-inflation pay settlements, with workers absorbing substantial losses
in purchasing power during recent years of inflation.
One worker speaking to Museums Journal summed up the
widespread mood: "We've finally reached breaking point."
Management has responded by preparing a fresh round of cuts.
Last month, the V&A announced a voluntary exit scheme covering all sites,
fuelling fears that the institution is preparing further workforce reductions.
Such schemes invariably increase workloads for those who remain while undermining
public service delivery.
Responsibility for these attacks ultimately lies not only
with museum management but with the Labour government. The V&A itself has
acknowledged that government funding settlements amount to real-terms
reductions once inflation is taken into account. Across the museum and heritage
sector, institutions are being compelled to operate under permanent austerity
conditions. The result is a familiar pattern: workers are expected to bear the
burden through worsening conditions, suppressed wages and job cuts. At the same
time, management pursues financial targets dictated by government spending
priorities.
Far from representing an isolated dispute, the struggle at
the V&A is part of a broader movement among museum and heritage workers. At
Royal Museums Greenwich, workers have balloted for industrial action over pay
and Living Wage accreditation. The Royal Armouries is pursuing plans to reduce
labour costs. Across the sector, management is advancing virtually identical
programmes under the banner of "financial sustainability", while
workers face deteriorating conditions and declining real incomes.
The role of V&A Director Tristram Hunt, a former Labour
MP, carries political weight. Hunt's reported refusal to participate in
negotiations shows how little management values the workforce. But the issue is
not simply one individual's attitude. Hunt embodies a wider layer of Labour
politicians, public-sector executives and cultural administrators tasked with
implementing austerity while presenting cuts as responsible management.
The trade union apparatus's conduct throughout the dispute
raises important questions.
PCS General Secretary Fran Heathcote has correctly described
it as a scandal that a leading national museum fails to pay all staff a genuine
living wage. Yet union leadership has limited workers to a series of isolated,
carefully managed stoppages while directing appeals to Labour politicians who
are themselves enforcing spending cuts.
No serious effort has unified the developing
disputes across museums, galleries, libraries and cultural institutions
throughout Britain. Workers face the same employers' offensive everywhere:
understaffing, declining pay, intensified labour, and threats to jobs. Yet
struggles remain fragmented, institution by institution.
Workers have already demonstrated their collective strength
through strikes, overtime bans, work-to-rule measures and other forms of
industrial action. These actions show that museums cannot function without the
labour of the workers who maintain collections, assist visitors, provide
security, manage archives, and run daily operations.
The decisive question is how to organise and direct that
power. V&A workers need new organisations of struggle, rank-and-file
committees independent of the union bureaucracy, to transfer decision-making
power directly into the hands of workers themselves. Such committees could
unite workers across all V&A sites, establish direct links with staff at
other museums and cultural institutions, and coordinate a common fight against
pay cuts, redundancies and deteriorating working conditions.
They should appeal for support not only among museum workers
but also among Amazon warehouse workers, postal workers, civil servants,
transport workers, educators, and health workers facing the same attacks amid
deepening austerity.
The struggle at the V&A raises fundamental questions
about society's priorities. Vast resources fund prestige projects, corporate
subsidies, and military spending. At the same time, workers who preserve humanity's artistic and historical heritage are told there is no money for
decent wages or humane working conditions.
The treasures housed within the V&A were created through
generations of labour. The workers who safeguard and maintain those collections
today have every right to insist on secure employment, decent pay, and
dignified working conditions. Their struggle deserves the support of workers
throughout Britain and internationally.
