And Something More for Women...
Department on the Status of Women, City and County of San Francisco For us, the last weeks of June mean scouring our manuscript for misplaced footnotes, erratic grammar, and broken links before sending it off to the publisher. Its title is Women|Museums: Lessons from the Workplace, and it's a book about the working lives of women in museums. And it's not surprising that in reviewing the text, it's impossible not to reflect on women's work lives in the museum field. In thinking about our manuscript and our recent AAM presentation (What We Don’t Talk About When We Don’t Talk About Women), here are the three areas where I think change needs to happen in women's work lives: wages; how women treat one another, and childcare. You don't need to be an astrophysicist to realize those problems affect women no matter where they work. They do. But as we've said here before, museums are peculiar environments that often advocate big values up front, while back stage employees languish. But pause for a moment. Are those the areas you would pick if you had to pick three? If not, tell us. Here's why: As we explained at the close of our AAM presentation, we hope to create a caucus group under AAM's tent that will advocate for all women in the museum field. (We should note that AAM has advocacy groups for diversity and LGBTQ, but not for women who make up 46.7 percent of the field's employees.) On the other hand, a caucus without a cause is pretty sad, so if you're behind us, let us know and please tell us what is on your mind.
************** So...in the spirit of equitable wages, I want to alert all of you who haven't followed the Obama administration's change in the overtime laws, that now might be the moment to focus, especially if you are a woman, and/or a female leader. To be fair, AAM has been at the forefront of this discussion, urging museums and heritage organizations to prepare for the change which arrives December 1, 2016. You can read what the department of labor has to say here: The New Overtime Law. You can also read AAM's article here: Changes to Overtime Eligibility. Why bring this up now? Because it's going to happen to everyone, no matter your opinion, and because it may involve many museum women in discussions about salary over the summer. By the way, my understanding is that if you are currently an exempt employee, paid less than $47,476, which is the new threshold for workers needing overtime protection, your employer does not have to return you to hourly pay come December. It can choose to keep you as an exempt employee, but clock and pay you time and a half for any hours over 40/week. Since returning to non-exempt status may affect your benefit package, you may want to investigate this option, particularly if your hours are steady throughout the year with one or two predictable exceptions. Last, and perhaps most importantly, if you are called to individual or group meetings where this topic will be discussed, read about it before hand so you can ask informed questions, and see if you can take the opportunity to ask about salary equity. Are women and men in your organization paid at the same rate for similar tasks? Does your board have a value statement about gender equity that it shares with employees? And let us know how an Equity Caucus could help. Finally, and more on this in the future, be supportive of your sister museum employees. Life will never change for working women until we realize how similar our problems are, and reach out to help one another. Need inspiration about how a positive, happy workplace helps us all? Visit Joyful Museums. Joan Baldwin
