Rounding out today's news, Salt Lake City has an exciting new union campaign in town. Salt Lake City Public Library Workers United, or SLCPL Workers United for short, are seeking to unionize the approximately 345 workers across the city library's 9 branches; in the process, they'll hopefully become Utah's first library worker's union.
Affiliated with AFSCME Local 1004, the group is seeking voluntary recognition from the Salt Lake City Public Library—it's not clear if they'll be given this recognition at this time, as they went public with their effort approximately a week ago. However, they have received support from the Mayor of Salt Lake City, Erin Mendenhall, who wrote on Twitter yesterday that "If your desire is to have the benefits and protections of collective bargaining, I am for that, no question." I think this bodes well for their efforts overall.
Big motivating concerns for the unionization effort are low pay (SLCPL workers are paid lower than average wages); safety concerns (members of the library have been threatened by the public and are subject at times to harassment); a desire to have more input in the library's affairs; and better benefits from employment at the library.