[Publib] APA and You

[Backwage at aol.com]

The other day I was talking to a couple of clerks at my local library,  and 
the subject of salaries came up.  It came up because I brought it up.  You may 
find it hard to believe, but my two colleagues mentioned that  their pay wasn’
t exactly enough to buy them a summer home in the mountains.  In fact, as it 
turned out, they weren’t  paid enough to cover many of life’s necessities—
things like transportation,  rent, let alone entertainment.  If  you didn’t know, 
entertainment for a  library clerk consists of reading a borrowed book while 
eating a peanut butter  sandwich—and that’s at the beginning of the month, 
before things get really  tight.  When the knife gets close to  the bottom of the 
jar, you visit friends around dinnertime—assuming they’re  employed in 
another line of work. 
Back when I was working as a library clerical, I had the advantage of  living 
at my mother’s place, and also receiving G.I. Bill checks.  How others made 
it I don’t know.  I do remember one guy who seemed to have  discovered the 
right formula:  He  lived in a flophouse, owned no car and devoted himself to 
walking long  distances.  The fellow took his  baths in a public shower at the 
beach, never cut his hair and ate bruised  vegetables and fruit salvaged from 
grocery store produce departments.  I asked him how he settled upon this  sort of 
lifestyle and he told me that he’d actually been a hobo for many  years—that 
working as a library clerk was a comparative lark, a sort of vagabond  life 
with a few dollars thrown on to boot. 
I am not going to propose that library workers read On the Road or Travels 
with Charley as preparation for  their careers.  What I had in mind  was 
something less in the way of reading and more in the way of concrete  action.  The 
problem of low wages in  library settings has more than one source, and more 
than one solution, but there  is one thing that all of us can do to support our 
own best interest and that of  our colleagues across the country:  we can join 
together to accomplish something. 
For almost as long as the library has been a fixture in public life there  
have been complaints about salaries and the conditions of work.  Public and 
private sector unions, civil  service rules and somewhat more enlightened 
management have made library  employment a better deal than it might have been years 
ago, but the improvements  have been scattered, piecemeal, and always lacked 
the driving force of a central  organization.  That isn’t true  anymore.  Now we 
have the APA—the  big organization that everybody was asking for, the one 
that everybody wanted,  the one that was going to stick up for our rights. 
APA is here, today.  It has  built a certification program, put together a 
toolkit for raising salaries and  even set a standard for librarian pay, with 
other pay levels to follow.  In an office in  Chicago there sits a Director and 
a  staff pushing an agenda for higher pay.  Twice a year a separate elected 
Council sits to decide on APA  issues.  APA has its own committees  to deal with 
the separate elements of our pay-and-status situation. 
In other words, the APA is what library workers asked  for.  It is at work, 
right  now.  Whether you know it or not,  the APA is working to raise your pay, 
to make the library a better place to  work, for a year or for thirty years.  
You asked for it and you got it.  Now the APA is asking for your help.  The 
Association doesn’t have a massive  funding apparatus or a huge endowment.  APA 
depends on contributions, a sort of voluntary dues arrangement from  the 
folks it works for.  That’s  you—the one holding the peanut butter knife.  When 
you get done making that sandwich,  take out your checkbook and write a small 
one to the APA.  I know your finances are tight—APA  wouldn’t exist if they 
weren’t—but there isn’t any other way we’re going to move  forward unless you 
support the Association with your donations.   
APA was created, but it isn’t a done deal.  APA can fail, and it might, if 
they  don’t get enough funding—that is, if we, you and I, don’t stand up for 
what we  asked for—if we don’t put our money where our gripes were, all those 
years.  We’ve got APA.  It’s time we showed that APA has got  us. 
If you don’t have a checkbook handy, go _here_ 
(http://ala-apa.org/donate.html)  and send a few  dollars to the people who are fighting your fight.  We’ll 
all be better for it. 
Michael McGrorty 

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