In what may have been the longest running unfair labor practice case ever tried by the firm, the National Labor Relations Board recently dismissed a complaint against The Museum of Modern Art, in which the General Counsel alleged that MoMa discriminated against several leaders of a four month strike by Local 2110, UAW, when it laid them off in connection with the 2002 closing of the Museum for its $860 million rebuilding project.  A unanimous Board panel (Chairman Battista; Members Schaumber and Kirsanow) concluded that the General Counsel failed to establish any violation of the National Labor Relations Act. 

Central to the General Counsel's case was the claim that Mary Corliss and Terry Geesken, who ran the Museum's Film Stills Archive ("FSA"), and Michael Cinquina, a buyer for the Museum's bookstore and chairperson of the Local 2110 bargaining unit, all long-term employees of the Museum, were instrumental in the Union's failed attempt during the strike to block approval of the zoning variances that MoMA was seeking to expand its space on West 53rd Street.  The General Counsel claimed that Museum management -- most notably its Director, Glenn Lowry -- was irked by the Union's efforts to compel agreement by lobbying against the Museum's New Building Project and that 16 months after the strike was settled and the variances approved, it retaliated against Corliss and Geesken by removing the FSA from the plans for MoMA QNS, to which the Museum relocated its other collections during the two year renovation, and put it in cold storage at MoMA's Film Preservation Center in Hamlin, PA.  The General Counsel also claimed that the Museum retaliated against Cinquina four months after that by eliminating his position as Assistant Book Buyer when the Museum introduced new book buying software, making the majority of his duties unnecessary, and simultaneously closed its main bookstore.

In December 2004, following 23 days of hearing from September 2003 through February 2004, during which the General Counsel left no stone unturned in his relentless assault on the Museum, Administrative Law Judge Steven Davis issued a decision dismissing the principal allegations of the complaint, finding only that the Museum unlawfully accelerated the effective date of the Corliss/Geesken layoffs by a few weeks because the Union interceded on their behalf.  The General Counsel appealed the Judge's finding that the Corliss/Geesken layoffs were not in retaliation for any protected activity; no appeal was taken, however, with respect to the dismissal of the complaint as it related to Cinquina's layoff.  The Museum appealed the Judge's finding that the timing of the Corliss/Geesken layoffs was accelerated for antiunion reasons.  In late August, nearly two years after Judge Davis ruled, the Board found for the Museum on all counts and dismissed the complaint in its entirety.

The case was tried by Peter Conrad and Michael Lebowich with the active participation of Bob Batterman, both as witness and longstanding counsel and advisor to the Museum.  Dylan Pollack assisted in the preparation of the many briefs that were filed with the ALJ and the Board during the course of the proceedings.