The employees at Greenlight Bookstores and Yours Truly stationery stores, located in Brooklyn, N.Y., have unanimously ratified their first union contract after joining the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union (RWDSU) in August 2021. Maritza Montañez, Greenlight Bookstore worker and member of the bargaining committee, said in a statement that the union was able to negotiate "increasing the base pay for new hires, scheduling annual wage increases, and providing health insurance options that will put money back in workers’ pockets." In addition, the union negotiated "transparent procedures for discipline, channels for grievances."
This news comes less than two weeks after the National Labor Relations Board rejected Duke University's challenge to the formation of the DUP Workers Union, representing workers at Duke University Press, which was formed last year.
While labor organization remains a relative rarity in the publishing business, unions have blossomed at bookstores over the course of the past decade in particular.
In New York, employees are represented by the RWDSU at stores including Book Culture and McNally Jackson, as well as at Housing Works, the homelessness and AIDS nonprofit that also operates a bookstore and café, while employees at the Strand Books Store have been unionized since the 1970s, and are members of the United Auto Workers union.
On the West Coast, numerous stores in California also have unions, including Bookshop Santa Cruz in Santa Cruz, Green Apple in San Francisco, Moe's Books in Berkeley, and Skylight Books in Los Angeles. Workers at Powell's, in Portland, Ore., are also represented by a union, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Local 5. Other unionized stores across the country include Book People in Austin, Tex., and in Canada, workers at several Indigo Books & Music locations have unionized as well.
