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IAM members at the National Public Housing Museum in Chicago have ratified their first contract just days before the grand opening of the National Public Housing Museum on Chicago’s westside.
The first contract secures not only a quality threshold for current staff in compensation, benefits, work-life balance, and growth within the institution. It also sets up a fair entry point for future members.
“The unanimous ratification of this first contract—finalized just days before the museum’s grand opening—is a powerful and symbolic achievement,” said IAM District 8 Directing Business Representative Ryan Kelly. “These workers stood together to ensure that the museum’s mission to promote housing justice is reflected in their own workplace. By securing fair wages, benefits, and protections, they’ve laid a strong foundation not only for themselves, but for future staff and the broader labor movement in Chicago’s cultural institutions.”
The museum opened in early April in the last remaining building of the Jane Addams Homes, a Work Progress Administration (WPA) public housing complex that opened in 1938. The complex originally held 32 buildings with 1,000 apartments and 50 row homes, named in honor of Chicago social activist Jane Addams, the first American woman to be awarded a Nobel Peace prize.
“On behalf of all of the members of the National Public Housing Museum Workers United, we are beyond thrilled to announce the recent ratification of our first contract,” said museum worker Mark Jaeschke. “In a unanimous vote, the 14 members of our unit came together to secure a strong first contract, just days before the grand opening of our museum.”
The effort to restore the last building into the museum has been an 18-year, $18 million effort. The centerpiece, a restored apartment, honors the Turovitz family who fled Jewish oppression in Europe during that time. The apartment is frozen in time from that era with the look and feel that a guest would experience when visiting the Turovitz’s home.
“We first began our unionizing process in October 2022 in order to secure a workplace that aligned with the museum’s mission: to promote, preserve, and propel the right of all people to a place to live, prosper, and call home,” continued Jaeschke. “We organize from the conviction that all workers deserve the same rights to work and prosper. We look forward to creating even stronger contracts in the future, and are thankful to all of the IAM team and their partners, including Ryan Kelly, George Luscombe, Chris Tucker, Geny Ulloa, and the rest of their incredible team. We are proud to join the tradition of strong Chicago unions working for the betterment of everyday people.”
“We are proud of our new members and their first contract. It has been a tremendous effort by a team of Midwest Territory professionals to set this standard for what can be for these workers now, and into the future,” said IAM Midwest Territory General Vice President Sam Cicinelli. “Americans won’t know their history if we do not have dedicated historians, like our members at National Public Housing Museum Workers United, to teach and protect this rich history of America’s stories of how we can uplift the working class with unions.”
