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Public libraries exist for the public good and they should demonstrate how workplaces should treat workers. Public libraries should offer paid sick time to all staff, move towards a real living wage ($24 an hour), and do more to recruit employees from the communities they serve.
I know this sounds bonkers and unattainable but if libraries want to insist they are good and valuable we need to start doing things that make it so. Libraries are notorious for following capitalist principles for no reason. We make no profit and never will. Yet we still force
library workers to work under appalling conditions. We pay terribly for all but the highest administrators. Our part time staff members are often where our diversity often is but we pay and treat them the worse. And we use public funds to perpetuate the classist treatment that
upholds white supremacy. If we are of the public/for the public we should show our communities there’s a better way to work. Sick time for all, move towards $24 hr min wage, hire from your community, and don’t put productivity above people’s well being. https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/01/21/if-worker-pay-had-kept-pace-productivity-gains-1968-todays-minimum-wage-would-be-24
To move towards a real living minimum wage, salaries at the top would need to cut, which I think is a good thing. Administration makes too much and is often so disconnected from the real work that they make decisions that harm their employees. https://cepr.net/the-24-an-hour-minimum-wage/
