Barnes & Noble staff at three Large Apple shops unionized on Thursday turning into the primary within the US to take action, in response to the union representing them.
After a two-year organizing battle, some 200 gross sales clerks, baristas, upkeep and different staff inked three-year contracts with the retailer at its Union Sq. flagship in Manhattan, its Higher West Aspect location on West 82nd Road and its Brooklyn retailer in Park Slope.
The Retail, Wholesale and Division Retailer Union now represents three of the 5 shops in NYC. One other 4 exterior of New York have organized as nicely.
Protests had been held final 12 months on the Union Sq. location, which additionally serves as the company headquarters.
Privately held Barnes & Noble, which operates some 600 shops nationwide, didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
“When we started organizing, we were making minimum wage in unacceptable work conditions,” in response to an announcement by senior bookseller, Aaron Lascano, who works on the Union Sq. location. “Now we’re looking forward to finally having guaranteed raises, excellent union health care coverage, protections from layoffs and stores closure.”
Every retailer has a separate contract, however their pay and lots of advantages are the identical.
Wages will enhance to a minimal of $23 to $25 per hour for brand spanking new hires, relying on the place, by the tip of the contracts, in response to RWDSU.
Some roles, together with a restaurant workforce professional who makes specialty drinks, would possibly pay as a lot as $29 per hour,” in response to RWDSU spokesperson Chelsea Connor.
Throughout organizing, which administration pushed again in opposition to, staff’ pay was elevated by $4 per hour to about $20, Connor added.
Different advantages embrace employee questions of safety – that transcend New York’s Retail Employee Security Act which went into impact on March 3 – together with stools for staff to sit down on and paid automotive service for workers who work in a single day shifts dealing with stock.
The RWSA solely requires employers to supply panic buttons and two coaching classes on easy methods to deal with unruly prospects. The buttons permit staff to succeed in 911 responders with a tool they put on or on a cellular machine.
Barnes & Noble staff will even get a brand new breakroom and job safety if a retailer closes or relocates.
The 2 shops within the metropolis that haven’t organized are at 555 Fifth Ave. in Midtown Manhattan and at 194 Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn.
4 shops exterior of New York have additionally organized and one in Bloomington, Sick. is poised to ratify a contract on Saturday, in response to RWDSA.
Barnes & Noble chief govt James Daunt, who ran UK-based Waterstones e-book chain earlier than he was tapped to run B&N in 2019, has spearheaded a progress technique that has expanded the variety of shops and revamped and modernized them.
The 128-year-old chain had been in a freefall.
“It was going through a prolonged period of decline in both revenues and profits — for a decade at least,” Daunt informed The Submit in 2021. “Two years in, the team has halted the decline and now has a base from which to grow revenues and profit.”
The corporate, beforehand led by the late retailer Len Riggio, was taken non-public in 2019 in a $683 million deal by Elliott Administration, the activist hedge fund led by billionaire Paul Singer.
