New National Gallery director Gabriele Finaldi, who started in the job on Monday replacing outgoing head Nicholas Penny, paid a visit to the picket line of striking gallery workers yesterday.
The No Privatisation at the National Gallery campaign reports that the director, who moved to London from Madrid’s Prado museum where he was deputy, stopped to talk briefly to those on the picket line. Amongst those he chatted to was sacked PCS union rep Candy Udwin, who is currently waiting to hear the result of her employment tribunal. The campaign also states that a ‘formal meeting’ with Finaldi has “been set up for later this week”.
Around 200 front of house and gallery staff at the National Gallery are currently on indefinite strike following the gallery’s decision to transfer their jobs to the private security firm Securitas. The company will manage the visitor-facing services at the gallery and has been given a five-year contract reportedly worth £40m.
The indefinite strike called by the PCS, which began on 11 August, follows 56 strike days since July 2014 when moves to privatise gallery workers jobs were first announced. The strike has been causing substantial disruption at the gallery – a tweet this morning from @NationalGallery said: ‘Due to continuous strike action there will be limited public access to some areas of the Gallery’, posting a link for further information.
In statement about the dispute, the National Gallery has said: “The National Gallery believes the proposed changes are essential to enable us to operate more flexibly, therefore we have appointed Securitas as our partner to manage some visitor-facing and security staff services.”
More on a-n.co.uk:
National Gallery staff take indefinite strike action
National Gallery staff organise exhibition in protest at privatisation
Protests against National Gallery staff plans continue
National Gallery staff take strike action against privatisation
National Gallery staff to stage second strike against privatisation
National Gallery: more strike action planned as union rep sacked
