The Safe Library - Service, Safety, & Security with Dr. Steve Albrecht

To Union or Not to Union
That is the Question for Some Library Employees
By Dr. Steve Albrecht

Samuel Gompers (1850-1924) became the first president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1886. At age 10, he began rolling cigars with his father, at his home in London, before moving to New York City three years later. At age 25, he was elected president of the Cigar Makers’ International Union. He is long known as the founding father of the organized labor movement in the US.

According to the US Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, union membership by employees in the United States in 2022 is 14.3 million employees, or about 10.1% of all employed workers (https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf).

This number has trended downward over the last 40 years. As the US DOL BLS report attests, “The 2022 unionization rate (10.1 percent) is the lowest on record. In 1983, the first year where comparable union data are available, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent and there were 17.7 million union workers.”

“Among occupational groups, the highest unionization rates in 2022 were in protective service occupations (34.6 percent) and in education, training, and library occupations (33.7 percent). Unionization rates were lowest in sales and related occupations (3.0 percent); computer and mathematical occupations (3.3 percent); food preparation and serving related occupations (3.6 percent); and management occupations (3.8 percent).” Ibid. (Emphasis mine.)

A question that has come up on several Library 2.0 webinars concerns how or even if, managers and supervisors should coach union employees. Is a library employee, who is a member of a union, entitled to a union representative during a meeting (also known as a “Weingarten meeting,” from the 1975 US Supreme Court ruling)? The answer is: “Not if the meeting is merely for the purpose of conveying work instructions, training, or communicating needed corrections in the employee's work techniques.”

If the meeting is an “investigatory meeting,” then the employee is entitled to a rep during the discussion. An “investigatory meeting” is defined as when “a supervisor questions an employee to obtain information which could be used as a basis for discipline or asks an employee to defend his or her conduct. If an employee has a reasonable belief that discipline or discharge may result from what he or she says, the employee has the right to request union representation.”

Since coaching meetings are requests for the employee to change or improve his or her work performance (quality or quantity of work, meeting deadlines, etc.) or work behavior (following policies and procedures, interacting with bosses, co-workers, or customers, etc.), and are not used to either threaten or initiate discipline, they are not Weingarten eligible.

I have also been asked by some library employees - who are often highly unsatisfied with their work environment, working conditions, or the way they feel they have been treated by their library directors, managers, or supervisors (always a highly subjective view) - if they should unionize. I tell them it’s not my job to sway them either way and I am neither an advocate for management nor a champion for labor unions. Over my long career, I have worked with both entities, as an HR consultant, most often in a problem-solving or conflict-resolution role. (I was a rank-and-file member of a union when I worked for the City of San Diego.)

Here’s what I believe to be true for employees who want to unionize: you have to carefully weigh the pros and cons of establishing a union shop at your workplace. The benefits are often more visible than the drawbacks. To wit:

Pros:

• Union membership creates more fairness in the hiring, management, supervision, and promotions process. The presence of the negotiated Memo of Understanding (MOU) makes the employment cycle visible and subject to correction if it’s not legal, ethical, or fair.

• Unions can stabilize the local wages and benefits - often at higher than current rates. In other words, a rising tide floats all boats. And in many systems, you can get most of the same benefits all members get, without having to be a dues-paying member; you just don’t get union representation in Weingarten meetings, as one example, although you’re usually subject to the same wages and benefits package.

• MOUs create a structured, formalized process for employees to file grievances that management must address. This can create more accountability for the working conditions and the work culture.

Cons:

• The (often way-long) process where a union is introduced to the employees, and the subsequent successful vote to unionize, can create lots of animosity between the management side and the employee side. Becoming unionized can seem like a victory for the employees and a defeat for the management, which can create longstanding grudges. And in a worst-case scenario, some people who used to be friends no longer speak to each other after one or the other went out on strike or crossed the picket line to work.

• The presence of the MOU can make casual conversations between bosses and their people complicated. Any changes in job duties, days off, and the various normal gray areas about worklife now become subject to the MOU. “Can I leave a bit early today?” can turn into a pointed conversation between the shop steward and the supervisor, which the employee is not involved in.

• The negotiation of subsequent union contracts can get hopelessly bogged down in the primary sticking point: everything on the table has some connection to Wages and Benefits. Individual benefits that could be agreed upon in a non-union organization in one meeting now became part of a larger collection of items that must be hashed out over weeks or months of angry, frustrated discussions.

I have heard employees tell me the union saved their careers, leveled the playing field for pay and promotions, eliminated bullying or discrimination, enforced consequences, and raised their salaries.

I have heard other employees tell me they wished they had never agreed to a union, especially after “paying a lot of dues for years and years for not much in return.” Or they got laid off soon after being hired, because while they may have a better work ethic and way more skills than their colleague, that person was senior to them, and the union followed the “last hired, first fired” rule.

As they say in the car business, “Your Mileage May Vary” or in Latin, “Caveat Emptor,” otherwise known as “Let the Buyer Beware.”