Connecticut’s Ferguson Library Workers
Walk Picket Line
Upset over the lack of a contract, librarians and clerks at Ferguson Library in Stamford, Connecticut, carried signs and distributed leaflets December 12 in the first of several proposed lunchtime informational pickets.
“I feel that we have a very valid cause and the public deserves to know about it,” Barbara Forgione, an 18-year veteran staffer told the December 13 Stamford Advocate. “It’s their money that is involved.”
Some 43 workers at the library have been without a contract since 1999. Ferguson is a private, nonprofit organization, but it receives 97% of its budget from the city of Stamford. Recent negotiations between management and the librarian’s union, American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Union Local 1303-317, have stalled over the issues of health-care payments and the employee grievance procedure. Both sides have reportedly agreed to a 3% annual pay raise. Unionized clerks and librarians make $20,000 to $49,000 a year.
Library spokesman George Nichols said a contract was offered last month, according to the Advocate, and they are awaiting the union’s response. Jim Brown, union local president, said the impasse has worsened labor-management relations. The two sides are scheduled to meet again January 16.
Posted December 17, 2001.
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