Library workers at the Rutherford (N.J.) Free Public Library gained significant salary increases this month, ending one of the borough’s longest-running contract disputes that dragged on for three years.
According to the January 4 Bergen Record, the average annual raise is 9.3% from 2000 through the end of the contract in 2003, and 4% for the years 1997, 1998, and 1999. Raises for the past four years will be paid retroactively.
The labor dispute, which included lunchtime picketing and the appointment of a state mediator, started in 1997 when workers formed a union to demand pay comparable to that of Borough Hall workers.
Under the contract, a senior full-time librarian who made $37,000 in 1996 would have earned $42,000 in 1999 and will earn $57,000 in 2003, said Jean Caughey, Rutherford Library Association shop steward. Caughey said library assistants’ hourly rates will jump from $7 to $11. By 2003, they will make $12.47.
Posted January 8, 2001.