Goshen Library opts to fight union

GOSHEN- A push by the employees of the Goshen Public Library to form a union will head to a formal vote after Catherine Lemmer, the library’s director, notified the organizing committee in a letter that the library declines to voluntarily recognize the union.

Lisa Taylor, a circulation page at the library, is one of three workers leading the group’s organizing committee.  Taylor spoke about her experience at the library and said she and her coworkers wanted to form a union to gain a voice on the job and stability in the workplace that comes from a union contract.

Since the library declined to recognize the union, the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) has filed for an election with the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB).  However, before a vote can take place, a dispute about which job titles should be included and excluded from the proposed bargaining unit must first be resolved.

Specifically, the library believes certain librarians should be excluded because they have supervisory duties, but the union is fighting for their inclusion because librarians with the same titles at the nearby Newburgh Free Library are union members.

Anthony Adamo, CSEA Southern Region President said, “The employees at the Goshen Public Library have shown to be in overwhelming favor of unionization with CSEA, as nearly 90 percent of eligible employees have signed an authorization card.  This type of support indicates that instead of a long, drawn-out PERB process, which will cost untold thousands of taxpayer dollars, the library would better serve its library district residents by voluntarily recognizing the union and investing the funds not spent on a PERB process into programs.”

The law allows library officials to voluntarily recognize the union at any time during the process, thereby ending the need to hold a vote.

Adamo also criticized library leadership over a recent public statement about the unionization effort in which they wrote the library…