Library Staff Say Smith College is Breaking Labor Law

Recently unionized library workers at Smith College are alleging that the school has broken labor law in recent months as the two sides begin the process of bargaining a first contract.

This spring, some 43 employees of the college’s libraries formed the Smith College Libraries Workers Union and voted unanimously to join the Office & Professional Employees International Union Local 153. When workers unionize in the United States, federal labor law requires that the employer negotiate any changes to those workers’ conditions on the job. But SCLWU members say that’s not what Smith College is doing.

The union says it has filed federal charges against the school for withholding regular cost-of-living increases and merit raises this month — pay bumps the union says that the school gave them every July and is still giving to non-union workers. Union members also say managers have suddenly started refusing flexible schedule requests from employees. 

“This is raising significant questions for us,” said Micah Walter, a web-services librarian and member of the union’s bargaining team. “Does this count as workplace retaliation?” 

The union has also filed federal “unfair labor practice” charges against the college for fighting the inclusion of four workers in the union. And SCLWU members say they’ve experienced other kinds of intransigence from the college, too. 

Union members say that the college’s corporate lawyer from the firm Mirick O’Connell has pushed back against the bargaining committee’s desire to share with all union members the tentative agreements they reach with the college as the two parties make progress toward a collective bargaining agreement. 

“That was something we were very excited to embrace — democratizing the process — and we were alarmed that we got this strange reaction,” said Jessica Ryan, a scholarly communications librarian and bargaining committee member.

Without sharing tentative agreements as they happen, union members would be unable to read them in full until they eventually see a full tentative contract shortly before their vote to ratify it.

“To us, it’s more of a matter of mindset and transparency than it is about anything radically different about the process of coming to those agreements or agreeing to them at the bargaining table,” Walter said.

After a June 13 bargaining session when the two parties discussed that issue, SCLWU members said the college filed labor charges against the union accusing SCLWU of bargaining in bad faith. 

A spokesperson for Smith College declined to make any administrators available for an interview Monday.

Ryan is both an employee and an alumna of the school. She said it was hard for her to get over Smith College’s refusal earlier this year to voluntarily recognize the library staffers’ union despite clear majority support for it. Now, she said the college is reopening those wounds by continuing to fight the union instead of understanding that library staffers are trying to collaboratively create a better work environment.

“These are choices and there’s no law against being cooperative, coming to the table and really working generously and in good faith,” Ryan said. “It would be an excellent choice to really embrace that and work with us … We’re not an angry mob here, we’re really trying to be respected and have some say in how things are working.”
The library workers unionization was just one of several union drives that happened on campus at the end of 2023 and early in 2024. Student-workers in the dorms and dining halls won unions in December and February, respectively, amid a surge in union organizing on college campuses across the country.

Correction: This piece has been updated to correct the spelling of Micah Walter’s name.

Dusty Christensen is an independent investigative reporter based in western Massachusetts. He can be reached at dusty.christensen@protonmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @dustyc123 or on Instagram @dustycreports.

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