Auctions may be on hiatus this month, but tomorrow Sotheby's willbe facing jam-packed crowds. Hundreds of Teamsters and their supporters are expected to march outside the Upper East Side auction house to protest the company's nearly month-long lockout of its union art handlers. Part of an ongoing contract dispute between the 43 Teamsters and the auction giant, the demonstration is the latest clash to follow the expiration of the art handlers' contract in the beginning of July.

The two parties have been in negotiations since May, and while the handlers have been picketing Sotheby's daily since the August 1 lockout, tomorrow marks their biggest rally yet. The gathering will also have a high-profile guest: James P. Hoffa, the president of the 1.4 million-member International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

The demonstration will mark a dubious achievement: the lockout is poised to become the longest in Sotheby's history. Following an unsuccessful meeting on August 16, the two parties agreed to resume negotiations on September 12. "We gave them a lot of other dates before that, but they didn't wantto meet until then," Jason Ide, president of Teamsters Local 814 (and a former art handler himself), told ARTINFO. That means the face-off will last for at least a month an a half in total — twice the length of the previous benchmark notched when Sotheby's kicked out its art handlers in 2004 for a little over three weeks.

The schedule also resumes negotiations within hours of Sotheby's Asia Week sales and the official start of the fall auction season. A sale of classical Chinese paintings will take place at 10 a.m. on September 13, followed by two other Asia Week sales and a wine sale a few days later. Sotheby's has brought in a team of temporary workers for the duration ofthe lockout, but "to attempt to do Asia Week sales with this crew of temporary workers doesn't seem like a good idea to us," said Ide.

Sotheby's did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In an earlier email message, spokesperson Diana Phillips told ARTINFOthat the September sales were part of the motivation for the lockout. "Given the repeated threats of a strike, which could have been organized at any time, and our fall season just over a month away, we needed to make alternative staffing arrangements so we could assure our clients of smooth and uninterrupted service," she said.

Teamsters picketing next to the loading dock have reported that "things seem to be really chaotic over there," according to Ide. One temporary art handler was fired and returned the next day, making "a big scene" inthe lobby before being removed by security, he said. "It just confirmed for us that this wasn't some crack art handling team from Phillips or something. These people don't have the expertise we do."