Last year, in an unprecedented move, Long Island University (LIU) administration imposed a 12-day lockout of unionized librarians and professors. It was days before the start of fall classes, and it was Labor Day weekend. 

The unionized faculty and LIU administration were in disagreement over a pay gap between the two LIU campuses as well as proposed cuts in pay and other concessions. A mere three days after the existing union contract expired, before union members were given the chance to vote on proposed changes, LIU “barred all 400 members of its faculty union from its Brooklyn campus, cut off their email accounts and health insurance, and told them they would be replaced,” as Alana Semeuls reported in the Atlantic. Such is the bargaining power of unions.

Emily Drabinski, Coordinator of Library Instruction at LIU and vocal union advocate, wrote about her experience:

When LIU Brooklyn locked out its faculty, they sent us out onto the sidewalk with all of the skills we use every day to make teaching and learning great in the heart of the Blackbird Nation. As we use these skills to organize effectively against them, it is clear that they have made a critical mistake.

In summary: when you’re up against people who organize for a living (i.e. librarians, archivists), you better make sure you know what you’re doing.

When you’re up against people who organize for a living, you better make sure you know what you’re doing.

I’m going to argue that it's time for archivists to unionize.

The current state of archival labor suggests that this is necessary in order to achieve stable employment, fair pay, and adequate benefits. I am talking about institutions investing, both financially and emotionally, in their archivists, and I am writing mainly from personal experience working as an archivist in term positions. The benefits of greater numbers of permanent archivist positions cannot be overstated: deeper and more meaningful relationships with coworkers, supervisors who know your strengths, as well as your personal and professional interests and allocate work accordingly, and the general sense of calm and well-being that accompanies the knowledge that your job is safe (as much as anyone’s can be).

After pitching this idea, I felt guilty. “Am I being irresponsible,” I wondered, “suggesting that archivists organize, when I don’t want to be the one to have to do it?” And then I realized that this mindset is exactly the problem. Organizing is a group effort. The solution I’m offering is simple, and it’s suggested only as the most basic starting point: If you don’t like your job, if too much is asked of you, if you can’t pay your bills, or if everyday stress is a persistent problem – call your friends. Send an email. Light up your network. Forge your connections and make them stronger. We must all help each other.

RESOURCES

For more on the LIU lockout, see “An Unprecented Faculty Lockout,” by Alana Semuels in The Atlantic. September 7, 2016.

Librarian and union secretary, Emily Drabinski compellingly chronicled the LIU lockout and aftermath. Her posts (and tweets!) provide an invaluable first-hand account, as well as insights into power and precarity at a university, the material and emotional labor involved in organizing, and how information workers possess crucial skillsets involved in union organizing. 

The AFL-CIO fact sheet supplies data and information on library workers and unions.

The Economic Policy Institute has a new report titled “How Today’s Unions Help Working People: Giving Workers the Power to Improve Their Jobs and Unrig the Economy” (8/24/17)  Also by EPI: Organizing Prosperity: Union Effects on Job Quality, Community Betterment, and Industry Standards by Matt Vidal with David Kusnet (2009).

UCLA Labor Center

The author thanks Eamon Tewell for sharing his expertise on the subject.

If you have other union organizing resources pertinent to archivists, send them our way and we'll add them to this list!  acidfree@laacollective.org 

Erin Hurley is an archivist specializing in audio collections. She recently began a position as Digital Preservation Service Assistant with the California Audiovisual Preservation Program (CAVPP) on the UC Berkeley campus.