Akron Library Administration
Discourages Union Membership
A few weeks after library workers at the Akron–Summit County (Ohio) Public Library began circulating AFL-CIO cards, the administration is urging them to reconsider the idea of unionizing. Library Director Steven Hawk has distributed newsletters with a anti-union message to staff, indicating how they might back out of any commitment to join District 925 of the Service Employees International Union, the Akron Beacon-Journal reported March 22.
Hawk’s approach in discouraging the 400-member Akron staff to organize was characterized as “threatening” and “intimidating” by the union’s executive director, Anne Hill. The library’s staff newsletter suggested that employees be careful about giving personal information to the union or placing their trust in its “unknown” representatives. This first effort to unionize Akron employees is taking place as some of the downtown staff prepares to relocate to a warehouse while a new main library is under construction.
District 925 is the second largest union in the AFL-CIO, and the same local that organized library workers in Stark, Cuyahoga, Medina, and Portage counties plus seven other Ohio locations. Unionized employees in Stark went on strike for nearly four weeks in August 2000.
Posted March 26, 2001.
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