It’s not every day that shoppers at Mountain Farms Mall encounter a giant rat in the parking lot.
But on Thursday, rising up outside the strip mall’s Barnes & Noble location was “Scabby the Rat” — an iconic symbol often used within the labor movement to draw attention to bad bosses and union strength. And workers at the store, which was the second-ever Barnes & Noble to unionize in May 2023, say that they have both of those.
“This store is three employees in a trenchcoat,” read one picketing worker’s sign outside the store Thursday. Others pointed to other problems the unionized employees say they’ve had with the company: “Short staffing is dangerous staffing.” “Over a year of bargaining with Barnes & Noble and all we’ve got is this stupid status quo.”
Since unionizing, workers at Hadley’s Barnes & Noble say that they’ve been in bargaining sessions with the company with no end in sight. Represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1459, the union held an informational picket Thursday, asking for community support and for patrons not to shop at the store between noon and 4 p.m. Flyers handed out to shoppers cited worker concerns of inconsistent scheduling, understaffing, low wages, poor communication, lack of accessibility, and what they said is a heavily delayed contract. The workers requested community members email the company CEO James Daunt in support of the union.
The company did not make a representative available for an interview Friday afternoon. In an emailed statement, a Barnes & Noble spokesperson defended the company’s staffing, wages, and commitment to its workers.
“We have bargained exhaustively with the union to reach agreement,” the company’s statement said. “The points of difference are minor and we wish sincerely that the union would help reach agreement.”
The union’s last informational picket was in November, but with the holidays around the corner, workers told The Shoestring this action was timed intentionally for the rush of holiday shoppers. Only employees who were not scheduled to be on shift at the time of the event were present, although they were supported by local labor organizations like the University of Massachusetts Amherst Labor Center, Western Mass Area Labor Federation, and other unions such as United Auto Workers Local 2322.
Izzy Farrick, a Barnes & Noble barista of four years, told The Shoestring that since multiple employees have left, the store has made no effort to hire new workers, leaving the business severely understaffed.
In its statement, Barnes & Noble’s spokesperson said that the Hadley location was actually “overstaffed in comparison to almost all other bookstores.” The company said it tries to allocate staff across its 640 stores “in proportion to the revenues of the store.”
Farrick, though, said that staffing has been an issue not just at the Hadley store. Other unionized workers, from New York City to Bloomington, Illinois, have similarly raised concerns about staffing in their locations. Hadley employees speculated that these nationwide issues, in both union and non-union stores, could be an attempt to cut labor costs across the board as unionized workers negotiate for fairer wages.
“It seems like they’re starting a skeleton crew model,” Farrick said.
Multiple workers told The Shoestring that the Hadley store’s sales remained consistent with other stores in the area and were not dropping dramatically.
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“It’s not a strike and it’s not a walkout,” said Clarke Daniels, a senior bookseller and union member who has been at Barnes & Noble for five years. “But the company has got to pay attention to us. We’ve been bargaining for over a year now and we’ve gotten very close on a lot of the non-economic sections of the contract, but now we’re trying to work on the economic proposals and the company is completely dragging their feet on it.”
In particular, Daniels said the company is “basically stonewalling” workers on proposals related to wages and healthcare.
“Everything we bring to the table is pretty much flat-out denied,” Daniels said.
Barnes & Noble’s spokesperson said the union’s pay proposals were “extreme” given that the company “was close to bankruptcy by the end of 2019.” The company said it has increased average hourly pay by over 35% since 2019.
Since 2019, inflation has driven consumer prices up 23%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index calculator. Drew Weisse, an organizer with UFCW Local 1459, said the union is working to make sure pay keeps up with inflation and that it provides workers with a living wage.
Over the summer, Barnes & Noble employees held a quiet protest by wearing union shirts to work after hearing about similar actions at other locations, Farrick told the Shoestring. She said management responded by requesting that all employees wearing union shirts work in the back and off the floor for the day, leading to the closure of the store’s cafe due to having no employees available not openly representing the union.
However, the workers’ main complaints about the company’s response were feeling like they were not being met seriously at the bargaining table compared to unionized stores in more central locations.
“They’re putting a lot of effort into their larger stores like Union Square and giving us crumbs,” said James Cox, a bookseller at the store for five years.
The company’s spokesperson said its representatives have held more bargaining days with Hadley workers than other larger stores, describing its efforts as “a total focus and commitment to negotiating in good faith on the part of Barnes & Noble.”
However, Farrick mentioned attending a bargaining session at one of Barnes & Noble’s New York City locations and being “shocked” by the level of structure in the meetings, compared to the company not even bringing their lawyers to some bargaining sessions with the Hadley union.
“If the company was serious about concluding with an agreement that members could take to a vote, they would be sending negotiators who are familiar with the proposals and knew how to navigate the process,” Weisse said. “We have been very serious about reaching an agreement since day one of bargaining and we think that the company has all of the information it needs to help both sides reach a final agreement.”
Cox said that union members are currently working to raise awareness of their struggle, hoping to get community members to let Barnes & Noble know that “even though we’re small, this is where it starts.”
“This is only the beginning,” Cox said. “We’re not going anywhere.”
The Barnes & Noble union has their next bargaining session with the company in January 2025.
R. Nicholas is a former editor and staff labor reporter of The Shoestring. He is currently a freelance journalist residing in Amherst, MA.
