Employees at Half Price Books locations in St. Paul, Roseville and Northtown (Coon Rapids), MN voted in favor of unionization on Thursday. They are the first HPB locations among over 120 outlets to win union recognition for their workers. Those unionized employees join United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Locals 663 and 1189. A St. Louis Park, MN location is in the middle of its own unionization vote; the NLRB will count those ballots on Jan. 3.
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PRH Employees Get Additional Time Off for Holidays
For most Penguin Random House office employees, the last day of work for 2021 is December 17, multiple employees confirmed to PL. In addition to previously scheduled vacation days, the company added December 20 through 23. (PRH has usually been closed for at least part of Christmas Eve, if not the whole day.) The extra rest is welcome in a year in which employees across the industry have struggled with burnout, and one employee attributed the move to “a job well done the other 50 weeks of this year.” Other large publishers did not respond to our queries about any […]
Half Price Books Union Effort Gains Momentum In Minnesota
Employees at four Half Price Books locations in Minnesota are the latest hoping to join a growing number of bookstore employees unionizing across the country. On Wednesday morning, Workers for Half Price Books Union announced that the company “agreed to our terms” and an election will be held on November 24. Votes will be counted on December 16. The unionization effort began in mid-October, when employees from HPB’s St. Paul location announced they would join United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1189. Since then, employees from three additional Minnesota stores also signed on (from Roseville, Coon Rapids and St. Louis Park). […]
Ann Arbor’s Crazy Wisdom Bookstore Owners to Move On
Crazy Wisdom Bookstore in Ann Arbor announced yesterday that they will either “be selling or closing” their doors come February 15, 2022, after 40 years in business. Owners Bill Zirinsky and Ruth Schekter, who are in their 60s, said that they are “ready to look out upon a new and different horizon.” Though many independent bookstores struggled financially during the pandemic, Zirinsky and Schekter were clear that this was not the case for Crazy Wisdom. “The bookstore had a very profitable year (due to having closed the tea room at the onset of the pandemic), and that’s not a bad […]