Boulder Public Library District Employees Organizing First Union of its Kind in Colorado

On Dec. 2, the Boulder Public Library District Board of Trustees held a public meeting to discuss the library employees’ efforts to unionize. Several employees announced their union campaign in October. The workers presented a plan to the board later that month.

“This isn’t out of any grievance,” said Rachel Garfield-Levine, a librarian at the North Boulder branch. “This isn’t because we’re angry about things. On the contrary, it’s because we want to protect what we know we have and we want to protect this place that we all love.”

Garfield-Levine is one of the employees organizing the union effort. She has worked for the library for almost a decade, and says she loves her job.

“ One of my coworkers came up with a saying that we think kind of encapsulates it – we want a union because we want a union,” said Garfield-Levine.

In Nov. 2022, Boulder County voters voted to form the library district, funded by a property tax increase. Formerly, the library system was funded by the city through city sales taxes. Under the city, workers had the protection of the Boulder Municipal Employee Association. Under the new district, there is no such protection.

In Jun. 2023, Colorado passed the Protections for Public Workers Act, which establishes rights for Colorado employees of quasi-governmental entities like hospitals, universities, public schools, and special districts like the library to organize.

“We’re really happy with a lot of how things turned out with the district. We know that the board has bent over backwards to create this library district from where there was no library district. And we have great salaries. We have great benefits. We love the people we work with. We love this job,” said Garfield-Levine.

“It’s going really well. And we know as we have learned in the past few years that things don’t always go really well. And we know the board is temporary. Other boards will come in. The management is temporary. Other management will come in. The things we have right now are not currently legally protected year to year. Our employee handbook states ‘things in here can change at any time with no notice.'”

Doug Hamilton is president of the board. He said the board is taking certain considerations to decide how it will proceed, because the union would be the first library district union in the state.

“There’s not a real framework for us on how we proceed, and so we’re sort of paving the road as we drive down it,” said Hamilton. “We’re doing our due diligence to think through those things.” A publicly-available draft of a potential labor relations policy outlines things the board might negotiate on, like salaries and benefits, and things they might not negotiate on, like the state-required budget process.

Garfield-Levine said the Dec. 2 meeting went well. “We felt like we got to answer a lot of questions that the board had, and kind of reiterate where we’re coming from, and then, you know, we’re continuing to sign members, people signed cards today to join the union.” She said over 80% of full time exempt staff have signed cards indicating that they want to join the union.

“Our goal is forward momentum. We’re coming from a place where we agree on most things, we just need to figure out how to codify it. So overall we felt very positive. We felt like we were heard,” said Garfield-Levine.

Hamilton predicts the board’s working group for the issue will decide on a policy in the next 2-3 months. “The board is interested in providing the best library services for the Boulder Library District,” said Hamilton. “And I think we’ve shown that we definitely care about our employees and we want them to be happy and secure. I think that’s come through in the policies that we’ve enacted, and the pay and benefits are some of the best in Colorado.”

Garfield-Levine is optimistic. She said “we are an amazing library system and we wanna stay that way in so many ways. And a great way to get fantastic staff is to be a library district that offers that fantastic protection, that assurance that these things that you’re getting now, you will continue to get, you will have people to fight for you. You’ll have a voice speaking up for your needs and a process to maintain your position.”

This story aired on the Morning Magazine, KGNU’s weekday morning show featuring in-depth discussions on local news issues. Click here to listen to other episodes of the Morning Magazine.