LIBRARIANS UNIONIZE, REFUSE TO ATTEND CONFERENCES OR SWEEP FLOORS
University of Oregon librarians marked today as the first day of the rest of their lives as unionized employees. The librarians, all of whom hold a master's degree or higher in library science, will be represented by the Teamster's union. The change in status comes as a great relief to some, who hope for an easing of work-related duties.
"I was working a 100-hour week before this, with four monitors, a dumb Janus terminal, two laptops, PDA, HDTV, cell phone, stereo, microwave, and freezer all hooked up to talk to each other and I was able to dial in from home to any of them, and I still couldn't keep up due to the constant demand for conference attendance and papers to publish," stated a very caffeinated Corey Harper. "It was insane. Some nights I just crawled under my desk to sleep. Now that we're unionized, we can only work 40 hours a week and are limited to ten conferences a year. We can't publish more than two papers a year unless they are on non-library-related topics. It's great! I've been able go back to only six double espressos a day, leave the laptop at home, and cut down to just one dumb Janus terminal at work - and I've finally learned how to catalog in MARC," he exulted.
Christine Grandy, music cataloger, says the change won't mean a lot to her. "I had tenure, so I was able to tell them to go to hell", she said. "But now," she added with a smile, "I can tell them to go to hell in a handbasket."
Barbara Jenkins concurred. "Once they fired all the custodians, my staff spent half their time vacuuming, taking out trash, cleaning, and dusting. We even had to take turns clipping coupons and shopping the sales for basic supplies like toilet paper and vacuum bags. The hours really added up, and staff were not reimbursed for their gas money or the toilet paper. It was rather like being a librarian in Iraq. Now we are free to devote ourselves to customer service, which is what we'll do best just as soon as we catch up on some sleep."
Some librarians were unhappy with the vote to unionize, however. "They'll take our dues, but will that bring the custodians back?" asked a bleary-eyed Heather Ward. "I'm allergic to dust, but I still get stuck sweeping the stairs. I don't see how that will change. If we don't sweep, no one will."
Ed Teague noted that the unionization did not only affect librarians in the Knight Library. "They didn't ask us in the branches what we wanted," he said bitterly. "But we got grandfathered in like everyone else." Branch libraries like Law, A&AA, and Science have retained their custodians due to their broader donor base, and Teague, along with Angus Nesbit in the Law Library and Jon Jablonski in Science, supplemented his "salary" (UO workers have not been paid for two years this spring) by presenting at nearly 300 conferences a year.
"Unionization will mean a lot of changes, good and bad, for everyone in the Library System," acknowledged AUL Mark Watson, "but I think overall it's a win/win situation."