Some employees at the Columbus Metropolitan Library are working to unionize about 600 workers. The Ohio Federation of Teachers is the union the employees would join. Their aim is to improve wages, paid time off and increase safety for library employees.
WOSU’s Debbie Holmes spoke with Jude Virostko, adult services librarian at Columbus Metropolitan Library's South Branch.
Debbie Holmes: Why do you want to unionize?
Jude Virostko: The reason that we are we are using unionizing, because you'll constantly hear people talking about how libraries are an important part of a functioning democracy, and that's absolutely true. And they need to be run democratically too. And the union is the only way we're going to have a voice in how our library system runs.
Debbie Holmes: And so what would you like to see different than how it's running right now?
Jude Virostko: We have almost no say in our working conditions. We just sort of get told what is going to happen to us. Like right now, there are employees who are being involuntarily transferred to different positions, regardless of whether or not they're able to access transportation to that branch or whether that new schedule works for them. Staff safety is another huge issue for us. We have branches that are running that are very low staffed, and it's difficult for us to run safely in those conditions.
Debbie Holmes: Has anything ever happened to you while you've been working?
Jude Virostko: I've dealt with what we can kind of consider the baseline level of harassment that I think any level of library workers have come to an anticipate. I have not personally faced violence, but I know like while working at the library, I know people who have.
Debbie Holmes: How much would the dues be?
Jude Virostko: That is something that we would all negotiate together once we get to the step of actually forming the union.
Debbie Holmes: How many people have voted yes so far, out of how many employees?
Jude Virostko: So, there's over 600 people in our eligible unit. Right now, we have at last count, we had 308 people who had signed cards of...authorizing us to bargain with them. That's what we've been working on throughout this whole campaign is going to every eligible worker and telling them, we want you to be part of this. We want your voice to be heard.
Debbie Holmes: When do you think this could be completed then?
Jude Virostko: Like as soon as we've talked to every eligible employee, we're hoping... sometime in the next two weeks, possibly sooner, but we don't have a firm date on when we're going to file.
Debbie Holmes: So, you've got more than half of them signed up.
Jude Virostko: Absolutely.
Debbie Holmes: And how many do you need then?
Jude Virostko: So you only need I think 50% to file, but we want to have the supermajority of 65%. That gives us the strongest position when we're bargaining. And that shows how much we want this.
Debbie Holmes: A spokesperson for CML says they offer competitive wages to full and part-time employees, along with a comprehensive benefits package and paid time off. Are you saying that that's not the case?
Jude Virostko: CML likes to trot out the whole, like we offer competitive wages, but there's two factors they kind of ignore when they say that. The first is how depressed library wages are across the board for the field. And the second is that becomes less and less true every time another system unionizes. Also as someone who worked part-time at CML, they (claim to) offer the health insurance benefits is another big one. It's prohibitively expensive when you are part-time to have CML's health insurance. And PTO is incredibly unequal. Like part-timers who do kind of the bulk of the daily work of the system accrue PTO at a much lower rate than full-timers, and having one week's illness can wipe out your entire PTO for a couple of months.
Debbie Holmes: How much more time do you think it's going to take then to finalize all of this?
Jude Virostko: We're hoping to file before Thanksgiving. That would be the best case scenario. We want to file by the end of the month, but as to the final process of getting to our elections, we don't have a firm timeline on that. I'm hoping we'll be able to sometime in the new year be finalized, have our election and be ready to go.
