Sign Our Online CIRS Petition

Workers at cultural institutions across the city are signing our petition to protect the CIRS pension. Once we collect a large number of signatures from CIRS participants, we will present the petition to the heads of the cultural institutions we work for. This is intended to put pressure on management to back away from the proposals they’ve made to reduce pension benefits for union and nonunion workers alike.

If you’d like to read and sign the petition, click here: https://www.coworker.org/p/cirs

Please include your personal email address – not your email address at work – when you sign the petition.

The petition can be signed using any device with internet access, including your smartphone or tablet.

Our voices are stronger together. Let’s sign up as many of our coworkers as we can to show the management team that we’re ready and willing to fight for our right to retire in dignity with a real pension!

Sign Our Online CIRS Petition

Can I Wear a Button at Work?

Yes, you can!

NYC cultural workers who want to organize to protect their CIRS pension are covered by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)’s provisions regarding “protected concerted activity.” This section of the law gives union and nonunion workers alike the legal right to engage in a range of workplace activities, including the right to “engage in concerted activity for mutual aid and protection” and wear buttons, t-shirts, hats, and pins.

This one-page fact sheet from the U.S. Department of Labor summarizes these provisions of the NLRA: Employee Rights Poster. 

Can I Wear a Button at Work?

Protect Our Pension! CIRS Organizing Meetings

Workers at New York City’s cultural institutions are coming together to protect our Cultural Institutions Retirement System (CIRS) pension plan from cuts proposed by both management and the City. Union and nonunion workers alike are invited to attend one of the following borough-wide meetings to learn more about the status of bargaining and plan ways to fight back.

CIRS Organizing Meeting Schedule (all meetings begin at 5:30 PM)

Bronx: Monday, January 18 | American Legion Post 620 | 1530 Hutchinson River Pkwy

Brooklyn: Wednesday, January 20 | Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Auditorium | 990 Washington Ave

Manhattan: Wednesday, January 27 | American Museum of Natural History, Davis Classroom East | Central Park West & 79th Street

Queens: Thursday, January 28 | New York Hall of Science, Cafeteria | 47-01 111th Street, Corona

For more information, contact nycculturalworkers@dc37.net

Protect Our Pension! CIRS Organizing Meetings