An Effort To Unionize at A Museum of Unionization

Taking a page from the history of the labor movement in the old tenement district of New York, a group of part-time employees at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum are trying to unionize under the United Auto Workers, organizers said.

A museum official said in a statement that the museum would allow the National Labor Relations Board to determine whether the majority of the employees want to be represented by a union.

" We spend most of the day telling tourists about the workers who unionized in the Lower East Side, in the garment industry," a costumed tour guide, Tal Bar-Cemer, said. "We were inspired to start a union of our own." Ms. Bar-Cemer said she also works as a teacher at a charter school in the Bronx.

The museum exhibits a collection of six apartments in or near 97 Orchard St. that have been restored to the way they looked in the early 20th century. Most of the employees who now are in a bid for unionization give guided tours of the apartments or dress up in costumes to act out the parts of tenement dwellers.

An organizer with Local 2110 of the United Auto Workers, Eden Schulz, said the average salary for part-time workers is $17 an hour. Union representation would help secure raises and more dependable hours, she said.

Local 2110 also represents employees at the Village Voice newspaper, the Museum of Modern Art, and the New-York Historical Society.