After months of bargaining under the threat of walkouts, unionized staff at three New York museums have ratified new labor contracts. Workers at the Brooklyn Museum and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum approved their second contracts, while the American Folk Art Museum (AFAM) union celebrated its first-ever contract with the institution. The agreements cover higher pay and better working conditions, the central demands throughout the negotiations. The ratifications follow a tense autumn for museum labor. Last month, the unions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum and AFAM jointly voted to authorize strike action if no tentative agreements were reached, following the Guggenheim union, which had voted to authorize a strike at the end of June. Earlier in the campaign, AFAM workers rallied outside the museum's annual gala at the Mandarin Oriental in Manhattan. Not every dispute is resolved. Unionized Whitney staff have set a strike deadline of Monday, October 5, just ahead of the press and VIP previews and the opening of the museum's Roy Lichtenstein retrospective that week, and say they are prepared to picket throughout the show. The deadline raises the prospect of one of the most prominent fall exhibitions opening under picket lines, with the union citing wages and rising health-care premium costs as untenable against New York's high cost of living. The Brooklyn Museum and the Guggenheim entered bargaining under heavy scrutiny after both institutions initiated sweeping staff cuts in early 2025, which they attributed to mounting financial constraints. Against that backdrop, the successful contract votes mark a significant outcome for museum staff across the city.