The National Labor Relations Board has determined that the Buffalo AKG Art Museum violated federal labor law and retaliated against union workers when it laid off 13 employees last year. The layoffs and subsequent restructuring were widely condemned by the union, which described them as an effort to eliminate union positions.
In a win for Buffalo AKG Workers United, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on May 28 ordered the museum to reinstate the 13 union workers laid off from its Visitor Experience Department in March 2025, with full back pay. According to a statement posted by the union on Instagram, the NLRB reviewed hundreds of documents that it said evidenced retaliation, as well as hours of testimony from workers. The union also claimed that the museum declined an opportunity to settle the charges before the NLRB issued its decision.
ARTnews has contacted the union and the Buffalo AKG Art Museum for comment.
The statement concluded with a call for museum leadership to end what the union described as a “years-long crusade against the union” and to “stop spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal fees to fight” museum employees.
The layoffs, first reported by The Buffalo News, occurred less than a year after the union secured its first contract. The cuts affected 13 employees—three full-time and 10 part-time—including front desk representatives, gallery attendants, and daily operations volunteers in the museum’s Visitor Experience (VEX) department. A job posting for 11 non-union security guard positions appeared shortly afterward, drawing scrutiny from the union, which described it in a statement to Hyperallergic as a “thinly veiled attempt to disguise … union busting.”
The museum denied all allegations of “union-busting, retaliation, or any other unlawful practice” in a statement to the press as museum workers and Buffalo community members demonstrated outside the institution during its First Friday programming. Some protesters held signs accusing AKG officials of seeking to exploit recent staffing cuts at the National Labor Relations Board implemented by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, has undergone significant changes since reopening in June 2023 following a $230 million expansion and renovation. Museum director Janne Sirén, who led the institution through both the capital project and its unionization drive, departed his post in April 2026.
The museum announced Sirén’s departure nearly three months after The Buffalo News reported that he had used a museum loan to help finance the purchase of a $710,000 home. According to the newspaper, the Erie County Comptroller’s Office alleged that Sirén had failed to repay the loan, prompting one representative to say she was “not sure why.” The Buffalo News further reported that the arrangement “appears to violate state laws governing nonprofit organizations.”
In response, the museum said in a statement that Sirén’s loan was “a relatively common practice in executive recruitment” and maintained that it operates “in full compliance with all applicable laws and audit standards.”
