Apr. 15—Meow Wolf Santa Fe workers will now see new benefits outside of the multiverse.
The Meow Wolf Workers Collective announced Friday that it ratified a four-year union contract with Meow Wolf that includes worker protections and benefits like guaranteed salaries for all artists.
Under the agreement:
— All current and future artists are guaranteed a salary of $60,000. Other creative positions like fabricators and designers will also receive that minimum salary.
— Exhibit workers will earn a minimum hourly wage of $18 with plans to increase that wage to $20 by 2025.
— Workers will receive about $1 million in immediate wage adjustments with plans for guaranteed increases over a three-year period.
— Workers receive layoff protections, overtime for salaried workers, 12 weeks of parental leave and rollover of paid time off.
"Our work was really to create a pay scale that brought people on the lower end up," said Carrie Taylor, Meow Wolf employee and union organizer. "That was really our focus."
The agreement comes roughly 18 months after Meow Wolf workers in Santa Fe voted in favor of unionization.
Taylor said organizing began in late 2019, but a vote to certify the union did not take place until October of 2020.
A tentative agreement was reached last month with the bargaining committee recommending the ratification of the agreement by workers, Taylor said.
"We've been bargaining a little over a year to get this contract," she said.
While certain benefits, like a pay scale and overtime for salaried workers, are only for union members, Taylor said all workers benefit from the agreement since all positions are now seeing pay raises and benefits like increased parental leave time and 401(k) matching.
"Everyone in Santa Fe has seen rent and housing prices go up and up and up," she said. "Until this contract our wages haven't kept up with that, so that has also been a really huge and impactful change."
The median home price in Santa Fe County increased by 23% from $650,000 in 2021 to $796,580 in the first quarter of 2022, according to a report from the Santa Fe Association of Realtors.
About 160 people are covered by the agreement. Meow Wolf employees at the Las Vegas, Nevada, and Denver locations are not included in the agreement, Taylor said.