Beyond stacking shelves of neatly packed books and organizing pages of digital archives, librarians are critical contributors to university research.
The contract between the University of California and the University of California-American Federation of Teachers (UC-AFT) expires on April 30. The contract was set to expire on March 31. However, the contract was extended by one month to fully address the academic and economic needs of librarians.
“Librarians are really the engine that keeps the research and teaching mission going at the university,” said Alix Norton, Archivist for the Center for Archival Research and Training at UC Santa Cruz. “We are an integral part of that mission alongside faculty, staff, and students.”
McHenry Library provides indoor and outdoor study spaces as well as access to the Global Village Cafe located just inside the library entrance.
UC librarians are represented by UC-AFT Local 1474 Unit 17. They have been bargaining since Nov. 7, 2023 for improved working conditions, focusing on a salary that reflects the cost of living in California.
UC librarians are academic staff, meaning they are required to do research and academic projects in order to advance in rank.
“We don’t have enough librarians to do all the essential work that [we] need to do — to develop collections, to help students and faculty with their research, to teach students how to use the databases,” said Kendra K. Levine, the chief negotiator and Vice President of UC-AFT Unit 17 and librarian for the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Berkeley. “We find ourselves buried in that work, not being able to do research or critically engage with the academic infrastructure around libraries, collections, and instruction tools.”
Levine says over-enrollment and restrictions to work days make it difficult for librarians to do the required academic work needed to move up in rank and access higher salaries.
“The libraries suffer, students suffer, the academic mission of the university suffers,” Levine said. “It’s been overlooked for a very long time and many waves of austerity have brought us to this point where we can’t really afford to let it continue.”
In addition to a number of collections available, McHenry Library also offers group study rooms, quiet study areas, computers and printers, and information desks ready for use during business hours.
Jess Waggoner, a User Experience Librarian at UCSC and member of the bargaining team for UC-AFT Unit 17 emphasized that salary is the primary concern for many librarians, especially in Santa Cruz, where a third of households struggle with the cost of living.
“The cost of housing is astronomical in Santa Cruz and across most of California. In all the towns and cities where we have UC campuses, housing is extremely expensive,” Waggoner said. “We have a lot of librarians experiencing the same kind of housing precarity that everyone else is experiencing.”
A 2023 UC report on salary scales said represented librarians made between $61,920 and $149,167, depending on their rank. In Santa Cruz, workers would need to earn around $100,006 a year in order to afford the average rent.
The UC has provided two updates to librarians since the start of negotiations in November.
“We are committed to ensuring you are compensated fairly for your work and the important role you play,” said UC in an update published Nov. 20, 2023. “We review compensation data at comparable universities to inform pay rates for professional librarians.”
Norton, who is also a member of the Unit 17 bargaining team, says the high cost of living in UC communities when compared to other universities makes recruitment of librarians difficult.
“Recruitment and retention of really talented librarians is a hard thing to do when there are other places in the country that may be paying better [or] the cost of living is lower,” Norton said. “We want the most qualified librarians and archivists working at the university, and we can’t do that if we can’t afford to pay them enough to live here.”
The next bargaining meeting will take place on May 3 on Zoom.
During the additional month of the contract extension, UC librarians underscored the importance of lecturer and student support during their negotiation.
“Our power as a union comes from our members, but a lot of it comes from the people who support us,” Waggoner said. “Having other organizations and other folks on campus that support us as a union is really essential to us being able to make progress at the bargaining table.”