St. Charles Library Board proposing to pay library employees $15 an hour as part of union contract

The St. Charles Library Board is proposing to bring all library employees up to $15 an hour as part of its latest offer with the library’s union.

The union has been negotiating with the board since April 2022. In July 2021, the majority of employees at the St. Charles Public Library filed to form a union through AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees) Council 31.

“Our union members are really disappointed that the St. Charles Library Board decided to make a statement and essentially decide to bargain with us via the media.”

—  AFSCME staff representative Carla Williams

The union was certified in November 2021. The library’s administration and managers are not part of the union.

St. Charles Library Board President Robert Gephart made a statement about the state of negotiations after a library board meeting March 8. The statement was part of a news release the library sent out March 9.

“The library’s management bargaining team and the union’s bargaining team have been negotiating their initial collective bargaining agreement since April 2022,” he said. “The parties have successfully reached more than 50 tentative agreements to date. Recently, the parties began negotiating over economic terms and conditions of employment, including wages, group insurance and other benefits. The parties have exchanged several proposals.”

He said the board’s most recent offer on wages includes a 4% wage increase for the first year of the contract, a 5% wage increase for year 2 and a 3.5% increase for years 3 and 4. The board plans to bring all employees to $15 an hour retroactive to Jan. 1, 2023.

Illinois’ minimum wage is $13 as of Jan. 1, 2023, and will increase to $15 an hour by Jan. 1, 2025.

The board also proposes to give employees six weeks of paid parental leave and premium pay for working on Sunday.

“The union’s proposals are neither affordable nor sustainable long term and would force the board to cut patron services, programming or staffing, which we have no interest in doing,” Gephart said. “The library remains hopeful that both parties will reach an agreement in the near future that benefits employees while allowing us to continue offering innovative, robust service to our community.”

Reacting to the statement from the library board president, AFSCME staff representative Carla Williams, who is the chief negotiator, said “our union members are really disappointed that the St. Charles Library Board decided to make a statement and essentially decide to bargain with us via the media.”

“We have been diligently bargaining with them,” she said. “In fact, April 1 will be the one-year anniversary of when we actually started negotiations. While wages are definitely one item that we are attempting to address in our negotiations, it’s not the only item that we are discussing at the table. And while they may want to focus on only one of their proposals, our goal with this contract is that we are trying to address some longstanding issues of understaffing and recruitment and retention issues where we lose good staff because the employer does not seem to value their part-time employees as much as their full-time employees.”

In addition, she said the union is trying to negotiate the cost of health insurance and other issues.

“Long term, frankly, we believe that by making some of these necessary changes that affect employees, we believe that it will make St. Charles a better place to work and if we can continue to attract and keep great staff, that will only improve the services that the St. Charles residents receive when they use the library,” Williams said.

At a library board meeting last month, library employees addressed library board trustees to voice their frustrations over contract negotiations.