Night of the Romanian Museums, “commemoration” instead of celebration. Museum employees denounce the “humiliating and discriminatory treatment” they have been subjected to for 20 years

The representatives of the CulturMedia Union convey, in a manifesto, that they are obliged on Museum Day, on May 18, to “commemorate” 20 years of degradation of the work environment, underfunding, discriminatory treatment, humiliations instead of a celebration event, reports News.ro.

“The International Day of Museums is celebrated on May 18. Around this date, the European public is invited to the European Night of Museums which takes place internationally in 2024, under the motto “Museums, Sustainability and Well-Being”. It should have been a generous event, organized at the national level, a celebration of museums and the people who serve this field and an anniversary moment of reference – 20 years of the Night of Museums in Romania! Unfortunately, we are obliged, considering the humiliating and discriminatory treatment to which we are subjected, to offer the governors a memorable event – as “anniversary” – “Night in the Romanian Museums” through which, in fact, we, the workers in the field protection of the cultural heritage, we commemorate: 20 years of continuous degradation of the work environment in the institutions with a role in the management of the national cultural heritage; 20 years of chronic underfunding of institutions with a role in the management of the national cultural heritage; 20 years of discriminatory treatment between performance institutions and museums and libraries”, the manifesto of the CulturMedia trade unionists states.

Moreover, they denounce: “20 years of humiliation and ignorance of the professions related to the protection of the national cultural heritage; 20 years of inadequate cultural and salary policies; 20 years of misery to which the workers in the field are condemned, despite the complexity of professional training and the difficulty of professions specific to the field; 20 years of condemnation to premature extinction of specialists in the field, who leave the system with poverty pensions; 20 years of depopulation and dramatic deprofessionalization of the field, considering the lack of perspectives and the “politicization” of the method by which staff recruitment is often carried out, in the name and in the service of a decentralization that has totally enslaved cultural institutions to local barons”.

In addition, museum professionals accuse that “for 20 years, there has been unnecessary bureaucratic pressure that is likely to block the performance possibilities of cultural institutions; the needs of the cultural field and of the professionals who serve the field are ignored in a discriminatory manner, reduced, in the view of the majority of decision-makers, only to performance institutions; the promotion of non-cultural values ​​in the public space; the continuous devaluing and degradation of cultural heritage through the inability to adopt a Heritage Code and a Management Law in Cultural Institutions, with clear specifications for the field of cultural heritage; legislation without consulting professionals in the field, without identifying problems from the bottom up and without knowing the real needs of the entire field; confiscation of the results of the work of specialists in the field only for propaganda purposes, confiscation followed by an absolute amnesia when the real problems of the field are discussed; the lack of real emergency situation plans, especially in the current context, for the protection of cultural heritage; the non-existence of regional emergency deposits for the evacuation of cultural heritage in case of disasters”.