Community Members & Workers
Protest Museum of Chinese in America
-Denounce Retaliatory Firing for Unionization
and Racist Treatment of Workers like Coolies
Press Conference: Friday, June 26, 2009 at 11am
In front of Museum of Chinese in America
215 Centre St., (between Howard & Grand St.)
On the first day the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) opens
the doors of its new facilities, community members and workers
will protest the museum's exploitative working conditions and
retaliatory firing.
MOCA, a 30-year institution of Chinese American history, barred
workers from joining unions, in the same manner that Chinese workers
in the mid-late 1800s were termed "coolies" not "workers,"
and therefore denied the right to unionize. During the Chinese
Exclusion Act, an infamous 60+ year period in American history,
Chinese were systematically discriminated against and barred from
many rights in this country.
MOCA opens its new site after years of forcing workers to work
overtime, up to 60 hours a week without overtime compensation.
Although the museum raised $1.5 million dollars in the last year's
Legacy benefit dinner and planned to double the salary of a new
Executive Director, MOCA used the economic crisis as a pretext
to cut staff salaries, as well as retaliate against and fire staff
member Doreen Wang who spearheaded the unionization efforts.
White-collar workers and community members will denounce the
museum for its racist treatment of workers and for its role in
working with the Mayor to displace Chinese, Latino, and Black
working people from the Chinatown and Lower East Side community,
and turn the community into a playground for tourists and the
wealthy.
