Cambridge Public Library Staff Sign New Contract After Year of Negotiations

The Cambridge Public Library Staff Association ratified a new three-year contract with the city of Cambridge on Wednesday after a year of bargaining, which had stalled for months over wage increases.

The contract includes three consecutive wage increases of 3 percent, 3.5 percent, and 2.5 percent beginning retroactively in July 2024. The union also negotiated double pay for work on Sundays and a new sick leave allowance policy. 97 percent of the union’s membership voted in favor after the tentative agreement was reached Dec. 13.

The CPLSA, which represents more than 100 employees of the Cambridge Public Library, bargained with Cambridge officials from December 2023 to October 2024. The union’s previous contract had expired in June 2024, but negotiations continued because union members said the proposed wage increase did not keep pace with inflation.

Over the course of 15 bargaining sessions, members pushed for higher wages, health and safety measures, “administrative accountability,” and measures to increase staff retention. While union officials said they “pushed back” against the 2.5 percent increase for 2026, they later accepted the city’s proposed pay raise in exchange for boosts in other forms of compensation.

“The City refused to increase this number, and mediation was unlikely to change this,” CPLSA wrote in a press release Friday. “In exchange for accepting their 2.5% proposal in 2026, we asked for a number of financial increases that come out to be nearly the same as the 5%.”

The new contract more than doubles yearly cleaning allowances and MBTA pass reimbursement limits in addition to new multilingual-employee stipends and a one-time wage raise of $1.40 per hour.

“The city was very firm on the percentage increase they wanted to offer, so a large chunk of time was spent trying to bargain against that and finding stipends and financial increases we could provide our membership in other parts of the contract,” CPLSA board and bargaining committee member Aruna Gopalan wrote in an emailed statement.

According to CPLSA Board Co-Chair Clara E. Hendricks, the program will ensure that multilingual staff members are “adequately compensated” for their translation services.

“I hope that it encourages retention in benefiting folks who have those additional skills,” Hendricks said.

Union organizers said they were frustrated by the extended bargaining period because they sent their official request to begin the process eight months before the previous contract was set to expire.

“The city just did not come prepared,” Hendricks said. “It felt like the process was being drawn out purposefully, with the city just not putting in the work to have material and responses ready for us.”

In an email to the Cambridge City Council, City Manager Yi-An Huang ’05 thanked the two bargaining teams for their “hard work and long hours.”

“I am pleased that we continue to support the important needs of our library staff, who are instrumental in providing our high-quality library services and programs to the public,” he wrote.

Union officials attributed the contract victory to public engagement during the negotiations. Members of the union staged weekly “standouts” in front of the main library, and more than 300 members of the public wrote letters to city leaders.

“We knew at the end of the day, people really value their libraries and really value library staff, and when they heard what was being offered to us, they would support us,” Hendricks said. “They really did.”

Workers also hoped to include provisions on administrative harassment and bullying — something that did not ultimately appear in the contract.

Hendricks said city negotiators told the union that the CPLSA anti-discrimination proposal for the current contract “was irrelevant because the city would be developing this policy.”

City officials announced in October 2023 their intention to create a new “discrimination, harassment, and retaliation policy.” According to an email announcing the plans, the policies are intended to “build out and reinforce the City’s employee support structure.”

“Fast-forward 14, 15, months later, there is no policy,” Hendricks said.

Hendricks said CPLSA board members were told in June that a nearly finished draft would be shared with the union for feedback. But, she said, the union never received a draft.

A Cambridge spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment Friday evening.

A health and safety committee, as well as a staffing maintenance committee, are also currently in the works between the city and CPLSA.

“Union work never ends at the ratification of a contract,” Hendricks said.

—Staff writer Hugo C. Chiasson can be reached at hugo.chiasson@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @HugoChiassonn.

—Staff writer Amann S. Mahajan can be reached at amann.mahajan@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @amannmahajan.