Strike at the Pompidou Center: more than a thousand employees are afraid of losing their jobs

The reason was the upcoming reconstruction

The National Center for Art and Culture Georges Pompidou is due to close for a long-term renovation in the fall of 2024, with a view to reopening in 2030. The museum’s employees, more than a thousand people, are afraid of layoffs and salary reductions. They expressed their fears publicly several months ago, going on strike and drawing up a petition that was signed by more than two thousand people. Recently the protests resumed with renewed vigor.

Since mid-October, the famous Pompidou Center has been in and out of operation. As a result of strikes by museum employees, worried about their future due to the upcoming renovation, the museum was closed for five or eight days in a row. Such long-term demarches are rare even for Europe. Five trade unions got involved in the situation. Their representatives are negotiating with the French Ministry of Culture. Museum employees insist on guarantees that they will not be fired and that their wages will be maintained. Officials promise to transfer some museum workers from the Pompidou Center to other cultural institutions, in particular Versailles, the Louvre and the Orsay Museum. We are talking primarily about technical employees: security guards, installers, riggers. But it won’t be possible to accommodate everyone. Museum workers insist that the state undertake to maintain the entire staff, and, no less important, the income of employees, for the next seven years. However, cultural officials are not ready to look that far.

Another requirement is that the museum continue its activities “in all areas on a single platform.” However, the Ministry of Culture certainly cannot give such guarantees. There is simply no other cultural site in Paris like the Pompidou Center – with an area of ​​120 thousand square meters. meters. The cultural department is ready to guarantee only the participation of Pompidou Center employees in organizing and holding exhibitions from the museum’s collection in other institutions. But the program of projects for the period of repair, that is, until 2030, has not yet been presented. They promise to announce it in June.

The option of leaving part of the building open, where art projects and, accordingly, museum employees, would continue to work while the other part of the building was being renovated was also discussed. But the Ministry of Culture responded that this would increase the cost and duration of the work. The only compromise that has been reached so far is the postponement of the closure of the museum: it was supposed to go for renovations at the beginning of this year, but the start of reconstruction was postponed to the fall.

The museum is now closed again. The glass doors are covered with protest posters. Employees don’t go to work that day. At least until February 15, the largest center of contemporary art in France will be paralyzed.