Library workers announce plans to unionize, continuing campus trend New Student Assembly campaign laws regulate election day rules

BY EMILIA WILLIAMS The Dartmouth

On April 16, student campaigning began for positions on Dartmouth Student Government, Class Councils and the Committee on Standards & Organizational Adjudication Committee.

The Election Planning and Advisory Committee updated the 2023 election code to limit campaigning during the election period, payments for campaign services and vote-buying.

BY CHARLOTTE HAMPTON The Dartmouth Staff

This article was originally published on Apr. 20, 2023.

On Tuesday, approximately 35 library workers gathered in Novack Cafe to announce their plans to unionize. After walking through BakerBerry library, the workers marched to the ofces of dean of libraries Susanne Mehrer and College Provost David Kotz to deliver a letter asking for support from the College.

According to acquisitions services supervisor Tim Wolfe, the plan to unionize has been in progress for at least a year, prompted by budget cuts, continued staf reductions over the past decade and stalling promotion programs during the pandemic.

“Primarily, it’s about compensation and benefts that keep up with cost of living increases,” Wolfe said. “It’s about a system of promotion and advancement that is uniform and fair to everyone in the library staf — and it’s about having a seat at the table.”

Research and learning librarian for humanities and social sciences Daniel Absosso read the group’s letter aloud to the group gathered in Novack, calling for “compensation that makes living in the Upper Valley viable and clear paths to advancement for all staf.”

Over the past year, group members have researched union creation and worked to get signed cards in support from at least 50% of library workers, according to Wolfe. He added that the eforts of library workers to unionize at MIT and Northwestern University in 2019 and 2021, respectively, contributed to their “nerdy approach” — involving signifcant research — to the process of calling for a union.

“We talked to other libraries that had gone through the same process of fguring out how to unionize,” Wolfe said. “We talked to a bunch of union [representatives] from diferent unions to fgure out what was the right one for our people.”

According to Wolfe, library staf also compiled testimonials, information about their platform and an FAQ page onto their website, constituting a large part of the past year’s work. The group’s 19 testimonials, published on the website, call for transparency and

SEE LIBRARY PAGE 2