UWO Librarian Strike Ends As Both Sides Ratify New Agreement

The University of Western Ontario (UWO) Board of Governors and the UWO Faculty Association Librarians and Archivists (UWOFA-LA) bargaining unit announced today that they have ratified a new collective agreement, in which the 51 librarians and archivists represented by UWOFA-LA will receive a 1.5 percent base salary increase each year for four years. The agreement ends a strike by the librarians and archivists that began on September 8, the first day of classes at UWO, which is located in London, ON, Canada.

The UWOFA-LA librarians voted 36 to 7 in favor of the agreement. The librarians, who will return to work on September 26, have been without a contract since June 30. Negotiations have been ongoing since April.

"The university is pleased the parties were able to achieve a negotiated settlement," said UWO associate VP Helen Connell in the announcement. "We value the contribution the librarians and archivists make to the university's teaching and research mission."

"I'm please[d] to see that the membership has endorsed the deal," said UWOFA president Bryce Traister in the announcement. "I'm proud of the resilience they demonstrated during this strike."

Traister told LJ in August that compensation was only one of the items at issue in the negotiations. UWO's academic librarians are paid 12 to 15 percent less than their counterparts in other academic institutions in Ontario and nationally, he said, but other issues included a decrease in the number of UWO librarians through attrition, and the reassignment of librarians into fields in which they aren't specialized. It is currently unclear whether all of these factors have been addressed in the new agreement.

Despite the administration's current statement on the value of librarians, it has previously drawn fire for saying that "[a]ll services to students will carry on as usual" during the strike. In a September 15 post to the Canadian Library Association listserv, UWO library school professor Sam Trosow wrote, "[O]ne wonders...if all services can carry on as usual without the professional library staff, why do we need a professional library staff?...Libraries without librarians (and archives without archivists) is hardly business as usual."