Elizabeth St. George
1:29:00
Thank you for this opportunity to appear before this committee.
1:29:05
My name is Elizabeth St.
1:29:08
I am a resident can you hear me now?
1:29:18
My name is Elizabeth St.
1:29:20
I'm a resident of Sunset Park, Brooklyn and serve as unit chair of the Brooklyn Museum's Local twenty one ten UAW shop, representing a 70 members.
1:29:30
I have worked at the Brooklyn Museum as assistant curator of decorative arts and design since January 2020.
1:29:37
However, my position is now selected for termination.
1:29:41
As a curator at the museum, I oversee 30,000 objects, research and public scholarship about the collection, conceive, coordinate, and install temporary exhibitions and permanent displays.
1:29:53
The training for this type of job is extensive, requiring advanced degrees, multiple advanced degrees, and a multitude of work experience.
1:30:02
This is vital work that not only supports the physical care and safety of artwork, but makes historical research and knowledge broadly available through our website and Gallery Good Didactics.
1:30:12
Also through tours and other teaching opportunities, I guide visitors and school groups of all ages through the museum and share stories about objects, the collection, and Brooklyn history that serve as a significant source of public education for our community.
1:30:27
This aspect of public service, educating and building relationships with visitors, is probably the part of the job that I love the most.
1:30:35
With its cost and staff reductions, including my position and others, the museum plans to cut 40% of its education in public programs, reducing its ability to serve and educate and engage with the local community of all ages.
1:30:50
With twenty two years of experience in the museum field, I wanted to work at the Brooklyn Museum because of its mission that proclaims, quote, to bring people together through art and experiences that inspire celebration, compassion, courage, and the will to act, to be the place where art is a powerful force for personal transformation and social change, end quote.
1:31:11
In recent weeks, I had been outraged that this institution for social change has rejected humane labor values and rights, not honoring its contracts with its labor unions and creating an environment of disastrously low morale.
1:31:24
Indeed, the museum has not shown compassion nor courage.
1:31:27
Its staff have been left wondering how good faith in the museum's mission can be restored or achieved by eliminating nearly 50 essential positions.
1:31:35
Local community members I have spoke to who rely on the museum's facilities and programs are equally concerned about these staff reductions, particularly how this will affect access to the museum's world renowned collections and its role as a public forum and space.
1:31:51
Today, along with my fellow colleagues from the Brooklyn Museum and UAW and DC thirty seven, I request that the city council bridge the funding gap about 3 and a half to $4,000,000 to stop the layoffs at the Brooklyn Museum and to please contact the director and pastor Neck to halt these layoffs entirely.
1:32:11
I ask that the controller audit the museum's finances to understand how this deficit came about.
