SANTA CRUZ — Bookshop Santa Cruz employees have voted to form a union with the Communications Workers of America Local No. 9423 after nine months of organizing.
According to a press release, these efforts were spurred after workers were asked to come back to the bookshop without health care or a voice in safety measures, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Workers also are requesting increased hourly wages.
For the union to form, the vote needed to pass by more than 50% voting to unionize. The vote to unionize captured 58% of the vote.
Next, workers must negotiate a contract with management. In December, Casey Coonerty Protti, the long-time owner of Bookshop Santa Cruz, told the Sentinel that she would work with employees if they successfully unionized.
“Bookshop’s general stance is that if our workforce votes to unionize that we will happily work with them to continue to make Bookshop the best place it can be,” Coonerty Protti said.
Jessica Irish, who works at Bookshop Santa Cruz, wrote a Guest Commentary in a December Sentinel edition. Irish voiced her reasoning for supporting the formation of a union:
“With this union, we are harnessing that power and using it to further invest in our community, and in the bookstore that we love. Our union will allow us to feel confident in our positions at Bookshop Santa Cruz, granting us job security during a pandemic, giving us the power to bargain on behalf of the most vulnerable members of our team, and creating the opportunity for every employee to invest in solutions that will uplift the bookstore,” Irish wrote.
At noon Saturday, Bookshop Santa Cruz workers will hold a rally in front of the iconic shop, according to Veronica Hamilton, a Democratic Socialists of America local chapter organizer who’s been working with bookshop employees. There, representatives from different unions will be speaking on the decision and what it means for service workers in Santa Cruz at-large, according to Hamilton.
