NELSONVILLE, Ohio — Athens County Public Libraries staff have asked the ACPL board to voluntarily recognize an employee union, after 72% of eligible employees signed union cards.

The union drive was announced yesterday in a press release from the Ohio Federation of Teachers, which represents about 20,000 active and retired educators, school support staff, library workers and social workers across the state.

ACPL Board President Kevin Dotson told the Independent he supports voluntary recognition of the union.

“I think it’s a right,” said Dotson.

The union would benefit patrons as well as employees, librarian Carter Beeson said in the press release. 

“As front-line librarians and library workers, we hear daily from patrons both what they love about their libraries, and what could be better,” said Beeson, a children services librarian at the Nelsonville Public Library. “I believe this gives us unique knowledge of and responsibility for the services we provide to the public. But the power necessary to honor that responsibility requires respect, fair wages, and a voice in the decisions that affect our work.”

According to State Employment Relations Board records, the union would represent 32 eligible employees organized under the OFT. Athens County would be the fifth library system to join the OFT since 2021, the press release said.

According to the SERB filing, the bargaining unit would include Athens County librarians; library, technology and outreach associates; and employees working in youth and adult services, local history, digital literacy, volunteer coordination, cataloging and graphic design. The union would exclude supervisors, administrators and branch managers. 

The union would include both part- and full-time employees, Beeson said.

“One thing that we’re hoping to address or have input on is benefits for part time workers,” Beeson told the Independent.

Library employees are the latest Athens County workers to move toward a union this year. Ohio University faculty filed for a union election in March, and employees at Hopewell Health Centers voted to unionize in May.

Will ACPL recognize the union voluntarily?

Employees requested voluntary recognition of their union from the libraries’ board of directors, which would allow the union to represent employees without an election.

ACPL Director Nick Tepe said the board will convene an emergency meeting to address the issue at a special meeting this week. That meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 1, in the large meeting room at the Nelsonville Public Library, 95 W Washington St.

Tepe declined to comment on whether he supports voluntary recognition. 

OFT President Melissa Cropper said in the organizers’ press release, “Our members across Ohio — in public libraries, K-12 schools, community and technical colleges, and social service agencies — are thrilled to support ACPL workers, and we urge the library to respect the majority decision and recognize the union.”

If the library board declines to recognize the union, the SERB will work with labor organizers and the libraries toward a union election.

Bryce Hoehn, a teen librarian at the Athens Public Library, said, “If the board decides not to recognize us, I’m confident we can win an election, and I would encourage people to ask the library and the board to not waste any taxpayer money or library resources on hiring anti-union consultants or trying to union bust.” 

In their press release, union organizers asked supporters to send messages requesting voluntary recognition from the ACPL board via a web form.

Pay a big issue for organizers

A central issue for library employees is pay, according to organizers’ release.

“​​Currently, some full-time staff qualify for food assistance. That is unacceptable and we can change it with the power of collective bargaining,” Andrea Anderson, a library associate at the Athens Public Library, said in the release.

Beeson told the Independent many library employees are “one or two unexpected expenses away from not being able to pay bills — or already being behind on bills and things getting even worse.”

According to the library’s current compensation range, obtained by the Independent through a records request, the library’s lowest paid employees are custodians, with a pay range starting at $13.50 per hour. After that are library associates, with a pay range starting at $15.02 per hour. 

The library’s lowest-paid full-time employee, a custodian, earns $14.85 per hour. Several full-time librarians earn between $15 and $16 per hour, records show — equivalent to between $27,300 and $29,120 annually for ACPL’s 35-hour work week.

The 2024 living wage for a single adult with no children in Athens County is $40,331, according to the MIT Living Wage Calculator. The living wage for a married adult in a two-income family with one child is $39,125 per year.

“We make concerted efforts to make sure that we are paying our staff appropriately for the sort of work that they’re doing,” Tepe said. “We regularly benchmark against other libraries around the state.”

Tepe, the highest paid employee, makes just over $103,000 per year. Median household income in Athens County is $48,750, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Tepe recommended pay increases in 2023 based on the library’s last benchmarking effort. According to Tepe’s letter to the board at the time, those changes brought most library employees’ pay higher than about 25% of library employees at similarly sized Ohio libraries.

In the letter, Tepe told the board that he was “generally okay” with coming in around the 25th percentile, because Athens County is less expensive than many other areas of the state, and because of the benefits offered by ACPL.

At least some of his staff aren’t OK with it, however.

“Seventy-five percent of library salaries are above that, so I don’t think our wages have truly kept up,” Hoehn told the Independent.

Hoehn also objected to the use of benchmarking data to determine fair wages.

“I think librarians deserve a liveable wage,” Hoehn said. “That means not only looking at what other libraries in the state are paying — especially if those libraries are also underpaying staff — but to also look at the cost of living in your community.”

In addition to pay, Hoehn took issue with decision-making by the library administration, and said library workers should be involved in decisions that affect them. As one example, Hoehn referred to a decision by administration to cut hours for part-time employees at the Athens Public Library.

“We understand that the library does not have infinite money,” Hoehn said. “But if it was because of budgetary reasons, we deserve some input in where those cuts are made, and if it’s going to affect workers like that, we need some sort of heads up.”

Beeson said, “There’s always the invitation to go talk to administration or the manager to share feedback. And, in many cases, I think that can be a genuine invitation. But when you have the power dynamic of going into this situation where you’re criticizing somebody who has power over your job, I think that gives people a lot of pause.”

Beeson also supports a union because of “base level protections that a union provides,” such as support in employee discipline.

Hoehn also expressed concern about “library censorship movements” through statehouse bills. Hoehn specifically cited concern for LGBTQ+ materials and said a union will give workers at ACPL a collective voice against censorship. 

Tepe said he has “taken in the past and continue to take very strong stands against the censorship of library materials.”