SFMOMA laid off 29 employees Wednesday, citing ongoing financial difficulties and low attendance since the pandemic.
“This morning, SFMOMA took the difficult step to eliminate 29 currently filled positions — approximately 7.5% of our workforce — including 20 full-time positions and nine part-time roles, affecting union and nonunion staff. Additionally, the museum eliminated 13 positions that are either vacant or that will not be backfilled,” director Christopher Bedford wrote Wednesday in a letter to the community.
The layoffs come amid active bargaining efforts between union workers and museum management.
SFMOMA’s union — which represents about 55% of the museum’s roughly 430 staffers — submitted a new bargaining request to management Feb. 25. The details of the request were not disclosed, but one union member, who works in visitor services at SFMOMA, told The Standard in February that the union wants to solidify protections for vacation days and bridge the gap between the highest and lowest earners.
According to Nat Naylor, the San Francisco director of representation for Official and Professional Employees International Union Local 29, representing museum workers, 26 of those laid off Wednesday are union members. Seventeen of the union members work in visitor experience roles.
“The museum gave the union less than 24 hours’ notice, with no opportunity to meet and confer,” said Naylor. “We had no chance to discuss the impact of the layoffs, negotiate a stronger severance package, or even assess whether these cuts were justified.”
Naylor said the affected employees were called for one-on-one meetings, and witnesses told her some were escorted out of the museum by security.
A spokesperson for SFMOMA denied these claims, saying Naylor had been contacted the day before to discuss offering the laid-off workers enhanced severance packages and insisting that no staff were escorted out by security.
This marks the second round of immediate and unexpected cuts under Bedford’s leadership. In November 2023, the museum announced layoffs of seven staff members and the elimination of 13 unfilled positions, also citing financial strain since the pandemic. In a letter to staff and the public, Bedford explained that 2023 attendance was 65% of 2019 levels. One month prior to those layoffs, the museum raised ticket prices from $25 to $30.
According to Wednesday’s letter, the museum is adjusting its budget for an expected annual attendance in the range of 600,000 — the same as 2023.
“We’re certain that, at least for the near term, we are programming for and adjusting our budget to reflect a reduced annual attendance normal in the range of 600,000 visitors,” Bedford wrote. “This means continuing the work that we began in 2023 to strategically reduce the number of our annual exhibitions and collection rotations.”
This story has been updated to reflect comments by SFMOMA.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the number of employees being laid off. We regret the error.