[[{“value”:”Cambridge Public Library (CPL) workers and community supporters rally in front of the CPL’s main branch. Credit: Working Mass.
By Connor Wright
CAMBRIDGE – It’s a crisp 45 degrees on Friday morning, but instead of finding warmth at their desks inside, workers at the Cambridge Public Library (CPL) are standing out on the broad strip of sidewalk in front of the main branch.
All 20 or so library workers wear coordinated T-shirts, carrying signs that read “HONK IF YOU LOVE LIBRARY WORKERS” and “FAIR CONTRACT NOW.” Parents driving their kids to the nearby Cambridge Ringe and Latin School honk their support, as do construction vans, garbage trucks, and buses. A few workers carry a large green banner with the name of these workers’ union: the Cambridge Public Library Staff Association (CPLSA), Local 4928.
This is no one-off action. Library workers have been organizing similar rallies every Friday morning. The weekly standouts are part of a months-long campaign for a fair contract, as the CPLSA fights to address long-simmering workplace issues in the CPL system that have reached a boiling point this year.
Worn Down and Pushed Out
The CPL is consistently one of the highest-rated public departments in Cambridge, a fact library management is quick to tout to their staff. But as multiple staff described to Working Mass, their working conditions at the CPL don’t match their high degree of support from the public.
One big issue is pay. Library workers technically received raises in their last contract – 2% in 2021, 2.5% in 2022, and 2.5% in 2023. But these “raises” either just held even with inflation over those three years, or fell well below it. In terms of real wages, that means the city has been slowly cutting pay at the CPL, making it nearly impossible for library workers to live in the community they serve.
Hill Saxton, the Senior Youth Services Librarian at the Central Square branch, has been working at the CPL for almost 9 years. They described Cambridge’s cost of living spiraling out of control for library workers, a sentiment echoed by every CPLSA member Working Mass talked to.
“Very few members live in Cambridge,” said Saxton, waving at a honking car. “Some of us can afford Somerville, but even that is becoming really expensive. We’re getting pushed further and further away from work.”
Cambridge rent costs have soared in recent years. In May 2024, the average cost of a studio apartment in the city was $2,339 a month, according to Boston Pads, a real estate networking and research company. Even as a senior librarian – at $38.81, one of the highest-paid positions in the CPL – more than a third of your pay could be sunk into rent, just to afford the smallest possible apartment in the city that employs you.
In this round of contract negotiations, management is making a similar wage offer. According to the CPLSA, the figures currently on the table are a 3% raise in 2024, 3.5% in 2025, and 2.5% in 2026 – all numbers that are unlikely to rise above inflation.
Michael Roberson, a 13-year librarian and vice chair of the CPLSA’s executive board, has been through three contract negotiations in his time at CPL. He didn’t mince words about library management’s most recent offer when he spoke with Working Mass.
“If you’re offering a wage ‘increase’ that falls below inflation – that’s a pay cut,” said Roberson. “The city is not budging on wage increases in any real way, even though inflation has gone way up.”
Library workers and supporters mingle at a Friday morning rally for better working conditions at the Cambridge Public Library (CPL). Credit: Working Mass.
Sick time is another major issue for library workers. They receive just one sick day a month, in addition to 3.75 days they can use any time during the year.
During the first years of the Covid-19 pandemic, Cambridge mandated two weeks of paid sick time on top of whatever sick time employers offered. But that Covid-specific time expired in 2023.
Now, with Covid still a reality, workers are “maxing out their sick time, and that forces people to come to work sick because they need the money,” according to Saxton.
CPLSA members also emphasized their fight against workplace bullying and harassment. The union is fighting for stronger contract language to protect members from this type of ugly behavior from managers.
Multiple workers described instances of bullying and harassment from upper management. These issues are often dealt with slowly or not at all, even when formal grievances are filed.
“When a grievance is made by a staff member who has been harassed, it’s not dealt with in a timely manner,” one longtime CPL staff person, who wanted to remain anonymous, told Working Mass. “It becomes this rot under the surface because it’s not responsibly handled.”
A CPLSA member holding a “HONK IF YOU LOVE LIBRARIANS” sign. Credit: Working Mass.
Churn and Burn at the CPL
These deep-seated problems are causing CPL to lose staff at an alarming rate. According to an internal count provided by the CPLSA, the number of workers who leave the library system has increased every year since 2020, more than doubling between 2020-2021 and climbing steadily each year since.
YearNumber of staff leaving CPL201912202011202123202225202326202426 (as of October 1)Library workers are leaving CPL in higher numbers each year. Source: CPLSA.
In 2023, 26 library workers left the CPL. That accounts for a staggering 25% of CPLSA’s entire membership, which is just over 100 library staff across all CPL branches. The same number have already left so far in 2024, and workers expect even more resignations by the end of the year.
“The amount of people we’re losing is frightening,” Violet*, who has worked at CPL since the start of the pandemic, told Working Mass. (*Violet wanted to use a pseudonym to protect herself and her coworkers from retaliation.)
“Administration has tried to say that the vacancies are due to internal promotion, but the numbers speak for themselves – 26 people have left the organization altogether.”
“People are leaving because it’s not sustainable,” added Saxton, the Central Square librarian. “We have an amazing staff, we want to keep all our staff. But we need people to feel supported, to be able to make a living wage and take care of their families, and that’s currently not the case.”
Stonewalling from Library Admin, City Managers
CPLSA members have tried to address these issues by raising them directly with management and filing formal grievances. Both avenues have run up against stonewalling from library management.
Progress at the bargaining table has been slow to nonexistent. According to Roberson, the CPLSA vice chair, library and city representatives have yet to address any of the union’s core demands. At a particularly contentious bargaining early in October, they refused to even engage with a package of compromise proposals put together by the union.
“We brought them a pretty comprehensive package,” Roberson told Working Mass. “We’ve really tried to compromise with them and meet them halfway where we could, while still keeping in a lot of these concerns that our members really want to see reflected in the next contract. But we’ve been told by representatives of the city that they are ‘unwilling’ to move on this – and they’ve repeatedly used that word, ‘unwilling.’”
With negotiations stalled, the CPLSA has been experimenting with new tactics to put pressure on library administration.
“We’ve tried to bring solutions to administration behind-the-scenes,” said CPLSA member Violet, who has been involved in negotiations. “Because that hasn’t been working, now we’re standing out and letting the community in, so they can nudge our administration to listen to what we’ve been telling them.”
Library workers and supporters wave to passing cars. The Friday morning action is part of a campaign to build community support for the library workers’ contract fight. Credit: Working Mass.
CPLSA Goes on Offense
To break through the impasse in bargaining, CPLSA is running a contract campaign, aiming to get its own members and the whole Cambridge community involved in its fight for a better library system.
CPLSA members have organized the Friday standouts, run coordinated T-shirt days, and often observe bargaining sessions, where the union’s 8-person executive board sits across from library administration and city management.
Library patrons and community members also regularly show up to the Friday morning rallies. Local union members often support as well, especially teachers from the Cambridge Education Association (CEA), who went through their own contract fight with the city last year.
“When we talk to people in the community they’re really excited to support us,” said one library worker, gesturing to a group of people who had stopped to chat. “People love the library, and they’re starting to recognize that the union is the library.”
To better organize this community support, CPLSA has launched a letter-writing campaign aimed at library management, Cambridge City Council, and City Manager Yi An-Huang. City officials have received hundreds of letters criticizing the city’s handling of negotiations and supporting the CPLSA’s demands. The union has also been doing outreach at local events.
For Violet, reaching out to the community makes sense, since the union’s demands would help both workers and library patrons.
“The things that we’re talking about – they affect the community,” she explained. “The less staff we have, the less we can be there for patrons the way we want to be…. We want to be transparent with the community in a way that management hasn’t been.”
Fortunately for library supporters, the CPLSA has made it easy to plug into their campaign. Links to send letters to city management can be found on the union’s Linktree, and the weekly standouts are held from 8-9am every Friday morning outside the CPL’s main branch, 449 Broadway, Cambridge, MA, 02138.
The CPLSA may have a long fight ahead of them. Next Wednesday is the last formal bargaining session before the union and the city enter mediation, a slow, bureaucratic process that can just as easily lead to a weak contract as a strong one.
Still, members have no plans to turn down the pressure and seem determined to make real gains in this contract.
“They don’t want to back down,” said Hill Saxton of management and city officials. “But we don’t plan on backing down either.”
Connor Wright is a member of Boston DSA and a labor reporter for Working Mass.
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