After resuming bargaining last week following the expiration of their contract and the decision to call off their authorized Black Friday strike, unionized employees at the Strand Book Store in New York City took to the picket line on Saturday morning, where they remained through the weekend. Will Bobrowski, a former Strand employee and the current second VP at United Auto Workers Local 2179, which represents the Strand workers, told PW that the bargaining committee and management were set to resume talks on Monday morning and that workers were “ready to resume picketing if necessary.”
Andrew Stando, a Strand union shop steward and bargaining committee member who is on the visual merchandising team at the store, said that, as of Saturday afternoon, “the company is just meeting us on our wage numbers, and people are pissed off.” The store, he said, hires employees at minimum wage, “and because of turnover, that’s where most people here are at. We're trying to get those numbers up to something livable.”
Despite movement on both sides toward a mutually acceptable number earlier in the week, management “didn't move at all on wages yesterday,” Stando added. The union is seeking a $2 hourly raise for workers their first year of the contract, followed by $1.50 per hour raises in the second and third year of the contract; Brian Bermeo, another shop steward, told Gothamist that Strand management “has offered 50 cents less for each year.”
Stando noted that paid time off is another major concern. “They want to decrease the number of personal days that new hires will get, and we don't want to throw our future coworkers under the bus in that way,” he said, noting that employees currently receive nine paid personal days at the store and that management aims to drop that number to seven, “with a structure where they will, after three years, get the nine. But our problem is it's a three-year contract, so the new people will never get those within the life of the contract. We are holding the line.”
“Bookselling is a challenging business, labor-intensive coupled with slim margins, but we remain fiercely dedicated to its mission,” Carson Moss, COO of the Strand, told PW in a statement. “We—by which I mean everyone from ownership to cashiers to our warehouse receivers—fight every day to ensure the viability of Strand. We respect and value our staff, and we have made sizable economic offers during this contract negotiation accordingly. The union has not been willing to accept those increases so far.”
Moss added: “ We will continue to bargain in good faith and target a compromise that creates a bright future for the company, our employees, and customers. Every decision we make is an effort to keep our business alive and maintain responsibility for our 150+ employees, and to continue serving our community as we have for the last 97 years.”
A flyer passed out by striking workers to passersby over the weekend claimed that, “after learning that employees wanted to participate in a strike authorization vote, management denied multiple employees their 15-minute break.” The document characterized the alleged move as a “direct violation” of the National Labor Relations Act which, among other things, “forbids employers from interfering with, restraining, or coercing employees in the exercise of rights relating to organizing, forming, joining, or assisting a labor organization for collective bargaining purposes, or from working together to improve terms and conditions of employment.”
In an email to PW, Moss disputed the characterization, asserting that management “did not know the union had planned a strike authorization vote that day, as they did not inform us,” that the request from two employees for a 15-minute break was denied because “there were already two other employees at lunch,” and that “no mention of a need to vote ever came up.” (Bobrowski confirmed to PW this weekend that Strand management was not alerted to the union’s intent to strike until Saturday morning.)
The flyer further asserted that Strand management “carried about 140 union employees pre-pandemic and only carry 90 now,” representing a steep drop years after the store laid off nearly 200 employees at the beginning of the Covid-19 era. The store “is saving over $1 million in wages alone while raising prices by over 30%,” the flyer claimed.
Moss noted that “Strand provides a comprehensive benefits package” to full-time workers, “94 of whom are union members,” with entry-level staffers eligible for a total of 28 paid days off throughout the year and senior staffers eligible for 33 paid days off. “Our current staffing levels are at their highest since March 2020, despite a flat 2024, and our business remaining significantly off pre-2020 levels.”
