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Providence Public Library Staff Votes to UnionizeWorkers at Providence (R.I.) Public Library voted 53–39 September 8 to unionize. The move followed more than a year of staff layoffs, cuts in operating hours, and public dissatisfaction with the library board.The professional librarians voted, 14–6 to enter a joint union with nonprofessional staff rather than form their own union, the Providence Journal reported September 9. “It was a very good turnout,” said Karen McAninch, business agent of the United Service and Allied Workers Union–Rhode Island. “Now, for the first time, the employees of the library as a whole will have the opportunity to have some say over their future.” She added that since the library is a privately run nonprofit, the new union will fall under the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board rather than the equivalent state body. The library administration had opposed the union and hired Mark Devin, a Boston-based consultant specializing in opposing unionization efforts, the Journal reported September 8. In an e-mail to library staff, Director Dale Thompson explained, “The process by which unions are formed is complex and involves numerous legal technicalities . . . . We have hired consultants to advise us to make sure that what we do and say is legal and that the rights of all staff are recognized.” Raymond J. Arsenault, president of the Friends of the Providence Public Library Mount Pleasant Branch, supported the union, noting that staff members have been unwillingly transferred and have little voice in the library’s operations, and that their salaries are dramatically lower than those of administrators, some of whom have received annual 12% raises over several years. Posted September 9, 2005. |
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