Efforts by staff of the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art to form an employees union are in limbo this week, after a petition to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) hit a snag when parties couldn’t agree on the size of the museum’s commerce, according to a union representative.
The NLRB has a minimum commerce limit of $1 million per year, under which it won’t claim jurisdiction over an organization, according to Ashley Mates, of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, which is helping SVMA staff organize. A disagreement about whether a nonprofit’s donations count toward that $1 million threshold has stalled the petition process, said Mates. They’re now awaiting a ruling by the NLRB which will determine whether SVMA has sufficient commerce for the Labor Relations Board to hold any authority in unionizing the staff at the museum at 551 Broadway.
Mates is confident the NLRB will find in favor of their petition, describing the donation-as-commerce question as “settled law.”
“We anticipate that the board is going to rule that this is ridiculous,” Mates told the Index-Tribune this week. “But we don’t know how long that’s going to take.”
Mates said the argument about donations is “typical interference” from SVMA’s legal council in the matter — the national firm Jackson Lewis — which she and the museum employees describe as a “union-busting” law firm. The firm’s website includes an article entitled “Remaining Union Free.”
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