NLRB issues complaint against Chicago History Museum

The National Labor Relations Board’s Chicago Regional Director has issued a formal complaint against the Chicago History Museum over a rash of anti-union actions taken by the museum’s former president, Donald Lassere, and former head of human resources Shatierra Parks.

Issued Friday, the NLRB complaint stems from a series of five charges filed last year by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 31, the union representing CHM employees.

A complaint is a serious and relatively rare step, issued by the board in only about 3% of unfair labor practice cases each year. It indicates that the NLRB Chicago Regional office investigated the charges against the museum and found them to have merit.

The museum’s pattern of retaliation against workers began immediately after employees sought to form their union, Chicago History Museum Workers United/AFSCME, one year ago.

Museum employees voted to join AFSCME on April 1, 2025. According to the NLRB complaint, on April 2 and 3, 2025, the head of human resources threatened all museum employees with termination, disciplined four and actually terminated four more. That May, three more employees were disciplined; in July, two were laid off and four converted from full-time to part-time. Meanwhile, the museum had unilaterally changed employees’ working conditions, including work-from-home and timecard policies, without negotiating the changes with the union.

Museum management took all these actions “because employees formed and assisted the Union and engaged in concerted activities, and to discourage employees from engaging in these activities,” the NLRB Chicago Regional office says in its complaint. “By the conduct described above,” the labor board NLRB Chicago Regional Director says, museum management was “interfering with, restraining, and coercing employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in” the National Labor Relations Act.

View the NLRB complaint here.

The museum has until May 29 to respond to the complaint, after which an administrative law judge will hear the case at the NLRB Chicago regional office. The board could issue remedies such as returning the wrongfully terminated employees to work with full back pay. In the interim, the museum could seek to settle the charges.

“The labor board is right to hold the Chicago History Museum accountable. It’s illegal to retaliate against workers for exercising their freedom to form a union,” AFSCME Council 31 Executive Director Roberta Lynch said. “Although these actions occurred under previous museum leadership, the organization is responsible for that conduct and must make it right. Going forward, we call on the museum’s new leadership to choose the better path of working constructively with our union.”