In October 2004, Latvia's Trade Union Federation for People Engaged in Cultural Activities (LKDAF) issued a demand for pay increases for state museum staff to the relevant authorities, joining a growing number of state employee groups with wage grievances.
A meeting was held in Riga on 19 October 2004, involving leading officials of the Trade Union Federation for People Engaged in Cultural Activities (Latvijas kultūras darbinieku arodbiedrību federācija, LKDAF) and its member trade unions representing museum workers, to discuss the issue of increasing the pay of museum specialists. A letter was drawn up and sent to: the Minister of Culture, Helēna Demakova; the chairs of all parliamentary parties; Jānis Strazdiņs, chair of the parliamentary education, culture and science committee; Gundars Bērziņs, chair of the parliamentary budget and finance committee; and Jevgenija Stalidzāne, chair of the parliamentary social and employment issues committee.
In the letter, the LKDAF board states that the wages of specialist museum workers are very low. The average gross wage of people employed in museums is EUR 177 per month, and after tax museum employees receive less than the national 'subsistence minimum'. This level of payment for museum specialists does not accord with the nature of their work or their qualifications, LKDAF argues. Today, working in a museum requires third-level qualifications, knowledge of foreign languages and ability to work with new information technologies, and furthermore museum workers are responsible for the preservation and care of important material assets. Many museum employees with university degrees are the only experts in their field, and also make significant contributions to international cooperation projects, the unions state. They add that low wages are one of the reasons why qualified specialists are leaving their jobs and newly qualified specialists do not wish to work in museums.
LKDAF is asking the Ministry of Culture to include provisions in the 2005 national budget for wage rises for museum specialists, department heads, directors and deputy directors. Some 400 specialists and 150 deputy directors and department heads work in 13 state museums. In planning the 2005 budget, it has to be taken into account that museums will soon become state agencies, whose wages must conform to the regulations of the Public Agencies Law and Cabinet Regulation No. 397 on the methodology for comparing the monthly pay of state (local government) employees and the monthly pay of similarly qualified specialists in the labour market.
In accordance with Cabinet Regulation No. 17 on pay for state agency directors (adopted on 15 January 2002), as future directors of state agencies, the monthly pay of museum directors could be EUR 1,030. The directors of the largest state museums consider that museum specialists should be paid EUR 440 a month, and deputy directors and department heads EUR 735 (the average national wage is EUR 295). LKDAF is requesting that an additional EUR 1.6 million be found in 2005 to raise the wages of museum workers.
The norms governing the pay levels of employees of state bodies (LV0409104F) have not so far been observed with regard to the wages of employees of cultural bodies. In the Law on State Institutions that has hitherto governed the work of museums, wage issues are dealt with in a vague way, making it impossible to determine whether or not they are being observed. By contrast, in other state institutions (eg educational bodies), wage regulations are precise.
The letter sent by the museum workers' unions highlights a rising wave of pay demands by state employees. This started several years ago among education workers (LV0409102F and LV0408103F), and increasingly strident demands are now being made by healthcare workers (LV0410101N and LV0405102N) and officials in specialised state services. This development is, according to commentators, being driven by two factors: national economic growth indicates that the state can afford to improve the wages of its employees; while a sharp rise in inflation is cutting living standards.