Ohio Federation of Teachers Wins Library Contracts

Ohio Federation of Teachers President Melissa Cropper joined the America's Work Force Union Podcast to celebrate a string of organizing wins at public libraries across central Ohio, while sounding the alarm on delays and management resistance at the Columbus Metropolitan Library.

Cropper also outlined a new national higher education reform framework co-developed with the American Association of University Professors and celebrated hard-won first contracts at Menlo Park Academy and the Columbus College of Art and Design. The victories represent years of persistent organizing and underscore the difference union representation makes for some of Ohio's lowest-paid public workers.

• Library workers at newly organized OFT Locals — including Worthington Public Library — have secured pay scales that now exceed the longtime regional standard set by the Columbus Metropolitan Library, with some workers receiving roughly 9 percent raises.
• Columbus Metropolitan Library workers, who filed for a union election in December, face a six-month wait for their vote. Cropper attributes this delay to the state employment relations board's pace, which she argues gives management time to run an anti-union campaign.
• Adjunct professors at the Columbus College of Art and Design are believed to be the first in Ohio's private sector to win collective bargaining rights, a milestone Cropper called significant for a workforce that has long gone without union protection.

Ohio Library Workers Are Winning — and the Numbers Prove It

For Melissa Cropper, National Library Week is personal. The Ohio Federation of Teachers president spent years working in public libraries before earning a school librarian endorsement on her teaching certificate and spending 14 years in that role. When she joined the America's Work Force Union Podcast to mark the occasion, she brought more than talking points. She brought receipts.

The OFT has been on an organizing roll in central Ohio's library system. In recent months alone, the union secured first contracts at the Delaware County District Library and the Upper Arlington Public Library, adding to earlier wins at Grandview, Worthington and Pickerington public libraries. Just days before the podcast aired, a tentative agreement was reached at the Athens County Public Library. Cropper described it as one of the most productive stretches the organization has seen.

Library Workers Are Earning More Thanks to Union Contracts

The pay gains tell a clear story. Before OFT began organizing Ohio libraries, the Columbus Metropolitan Library was widely regarded as setting the compensation standard for the region. That is no longer the case, as the now-unionized Worthington Public Library has a pay scale that surpasses that of the Columbus Metropolitan. Workers in several of the newly organized libraries have received roughly 9 percent raises, moving from below-market wages to genuinely competitive compensation within the field.

The first contracts being negotiated at these libraries are delivering more than pay increases. Workers are winning paid assault leave, increased paid time off, paid parental leave, tuition reimbursement and binding grievance and arbitration procedures. For workers who previously had no formal recourse when management acted arbitrarily, that last item carries particular weight.

Columbus Metropolitan Library Workers Face a Long Road to the Ballot Box

Not every organizing campaign moves quickly. Workers at the Columbus Metropolitan Library filed for a union election in December, and they will not vote until mid-June — a six-month wait that Cropper called unacceptable and out of step with how the state's other library elections have unfolded. Earlier campaigns in the region took three to five months to reach a vote.

Cropper placed responsibility for that delay on the Ohio State Employment Relations Board, noting that the extended timeline creates real organizing challenges. Turnover in library workforces means the workers who first signed authorization cards may no longer be on staff by the time the election arrives. Keeping people energized and engaged for six months, particularly when over 60 percent of the workforce has already expressed support for a union, is a significant burden on organizers.

Meanwhile, library management has not remained neutral. Cropper said the administration has distributed materials that she characterized as selectively presenting information about union dues, and has embedded what it labels "union education" content at the top of employees' internal communications. When workers click through, the content promotes management's perspective on unionization. Cropper said the OFT has been actively working to counter that messaging and keep workers focused on the tangible improvements union contracts have delivered at neighboring libraries.

AFT and AAUP Unite on a National Higher Education Agenda

The organizing fight is not limited to libraries. At the national level, the American Federation of Teachers has merged with the American Association of University Professors to present a unified front on higher education policy. The two organizations have released a framework titled "A Blueprint for Strengthening and Transforming Higher Education," timed with an eye toward the midterm elections.

Cropper described the blueprint as a direct response to what she called severe attacks on higher education at both the state and federal levels — pressure on curriculum, cuts to research funding and efforts to diminish the role of faculty in institutional governance. The framework calls for public higher education graduates to be able to complete their degrees without incurring debt, for faculty work to be recognized as dignified employment with real job security and for academic freedom and shared governance to be protected rather than curtailed.

Cropper was also careful to address the relationship between higher education and career and technical education, a distinction that has sometimes been framed as an either/or choice. In her view, the two pathways should complement each other, with career tech serving as a route toward a second postsecondary credential rather than a replacement for a four-year degree.

Years of Bargaining Pay Off at Menlo Park and CCAD

Two additional contract wins rounded out what Cropper called a significant couple of weeks for the OFT. At Menlo Park Academy, educators ratified their first contract after four years of bargaining — a timeline that saw nearly complete staff turnover. Each new group of teachers that joined the school during that period chose to continue the campaign rather than abandon it. Cropper said one of the most important provisions in the final agreement was the establishment of a formal grievance procedure, noting that a teacher had been removed without any procedural process, an event she described as galvanizing for those still fighting for a contract.

At the Columbus College of Art and Design, a private institution, adjunct faculty reached a tentative agreement following two years of bargaining. Cropper noted that in Ohio's public sector, adjunct professors have no collective bargaining rights. However, since CCAD operates in the private sector, its adjunct faculty may well be the first in the state to win those rights, which is a distinction Cropper said she could not confirm with complete certainty but believed to be accurate.

Taken together, the library wins, the higher education framework and the two new institutional contracts paint a picture of an organization that has been grinding through difficult campaigns and beginning to see the results.

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