Unionbusting and the War on History

This story about the Chicago History Museum slashing workers hours and public services in order to unionbust suggests a lot about why our elites–whatever their political affiliation–are fundamentally pro-Trumpist and acquiesce on everything. Because they want power and control over the proles.

For almost 170 years, the museum has been a valued cultural institution in our city. Its exhibits have helped craft the very image of the city. The facility has illuminated the past of Chicago’s underserved communities. The museum even teaches us why Chicago was (and is) a center of working-class activism in America, from the Haymarket affair in the 19th century to the Chicago Teachers Union strike in the 21st century. Many amazing books were born from research in its archives.

But now, seemingly because of a labor dispute, the museum has brutally cut staff positions and reduced hours at its research library. It is now all but impossible for students to do research there, as the library is only open three days a week and at hours when most students are in class “due to staffing reductions.”

The problems started after museum employees voted in February to form a union called the Chicago History Museum Workers United. Museum leaders responded by firing several of the organizers. Then, in July, several more staff members were fired. On that same July morning, the museum’s senior officials walked into the Abakanowicz Research Center, the hub of the city’s archival holdings, and announced that every staff member would be reduced to part-time hours, leaving them without health insurance and a significant portion of their incomes.

In total, it seems as if about 50% of staff hours were cut.

The timing couldn’t have been worse. The Trump administration has slashed museum budgets, the Smithsonian is being reviewed to align with President Donald Trump’s vision of America and the school year just started.

One of us is the chair of the department of history at University of Illinois Chicago, the city’s only four-year public university with an R1 status — a prestigious designation given by Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education to universities with the highest levels of research activity. The department sends its students to do original work in the museum’s archive, to feel the excitement of touching a document once possessed by Robert La Salle, George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. (inventor of the Ferris wheel) or witnesses to the 1919 race riots. Some of our students — many who are middle class and/or people of color — even intern at the museum to get real-world experience. The skills students learn as history majors — locating and analyzing vast amounts of information, using critical thinking to see patterns, learning how to be storytellers — all were done in partnership with the museum. Those skills are a key reason businesses like to hire humanities majors.

Another one of us is one of those students — a fourth-year history major at UIC who is researching race relations between European immigrants and Black Americans. Very little has been published on the subject, and museum archives help tell this important story. The museum’s accessibility is not just a matter of proximity (it is only a 25-minute bus ride from campus) but also of its practices. Of all the archives we have visited, the Abakanowicz is one of the few that does not require a reservation or is mired in bureaucracy. Anyone can walk in at the Abakanowicz and request whatever materials he or she would like. The staff is always ready to assist, too, which is essential for newer researchers getting acclimated to the complex world of archival work. Researching there has been a crucial part of many students’ education.

Shutting off access to knowledge, destroying unions, dominating workers–what’s the difference between Trump and the people who run this museum?