National Gallery Security Staff Segregated From Other Employees, Curator Claims
Outsourced security staff are being separated from other employees like “second class citizens”, a senior curator claims
National Gallery, London. Photo: Mike Peel via Wikimedia Commons
A senior curator has told The Guardian that the National Gallery’s outsourced security staff – the majority of whom are from non-white backgrounds – are being segregated like “second-class citizens”.
The institution’s other employees have access to high-quality recreation rooms and a heavily subsidised canteen from which security staff are barred. They are relegated to a “stifling” basement space with broken furniture, rodent issues and no natural light or air conditioning, the curator says.
Security staff are represented by the PCS union, which wrote to the gallery’s director on 01 July to argue that the separation was “potentially discriminatory under the Equality Act 2010”. The organisation is still waiting for a reply.
The National Gallery told The Guardian: “Security staff do not have access to the hub offices. This has been the position since those offices were established due to wider space constraints, with dedicated facilities provided elsewhere in the gallery for security staff and other contractors.”
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