In an update posted on their website yesterday, Civic Service Union 52 (CSU 52) announced that workers employed at the Valleyview Municipal Library recently voted in favour of joining their union.
CSU 52 represents over 7,000 technical, professional, administrative and clerical workers in Edmonton employed with 5 employers:
- Capital Power
- City of Edmonton
- Edmonton Public Library
- EPCOR
- TELUS World of Science
The Valleyview Municipal Library is located in, well, Valleyview, a town of about 2,000 people and located 115 kilometres east of Grande Prairie.
If the name “Valleyview Municipal Library” sounds familiar, it is because it had found itself at the centre of the War on Wokeness launched by people on the political right who are infatuated with identity politics.
Back in January, the library board of directors—who are chosen by the town council—voted to close the library and move into a brand new school complex, where it will be half the size it is now and could be subject to new transphobic education policies brought in by the UCP government.
Workers at the library had been running a gender and sexuality alliance (GSA) club, and its future is uncertain given the restrictions on schools that Danielle Smith’s administration has forced on school, such as outing queer youth to their parents.
CSU 52 applied for union certification back in April, but the Alberta Labour Relations Board only held the certification vote this past Monday.
One of the reasons it took this long is because both the library and the union objected to the initial report from the ALRB on who was to be included in the bargaining unit.
That report excluded the library director, which the union argued should be included, as they though the position did not have sufficient managerial responsibilities to not be. It included a janitor, which the library argued was an independent contractor and should be excluded.
The ALRB released a decision earlier this month on those objections.
In their decision, the labour board concluded that the library director “performs a managerial function and is excluded from the definition of employee”. They also found that the person they included as janitor performed “services on behalf of the employer and not as a person in business on his own account”.
That resulted in a potential bargaining unit of just 3 workers: the programming coordinator (also an assistant director), the circulation clerk, and the janitor.
The certification vote occurred this past Monday (25th), and according the Bryce Jowett, the president of CSU 52, the 3 workers voted unanimously in favour of unionizing with CSU 52.
In an email to The Alberta Worker, Jowett expressed the union’s satisfaction with the long-awaited certification results.
We are very excited to have achieved certification for these workers and are looking forward to commencing first contract negotiations with the Valleyview Library Board.
