Richmond bookstore unionizes; first in the region
The painted storefront of Shelf Life Books on Cary Street. The local shop’s five employees unionized to protect future employees. Photo by Jack Glagola.
Jack Glagola, News Editor
Five employees of Shelf Life Books, a local bookstore in Carytown, unanimously voted to form a union with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 400 last week. They are the first bookstore in Richmond to unionize, according to a press release.
Growing numbers of bookstores have formed unions recently. Two bookstores in Washington, D.C., Politics and Prose and Solid State Books, who unionized in 2022 and 2023, respectively, inspired the workers at Shelf Life to launch their own effort, according to the press release.
Athena Palmer, who works at Shelf Life Books, said one of her coworkers moving away spurred the union effort, which had been in the making for two years.
“We were thinking about legacy and what kind of state we want to leave the store in if we ever do leave or as we progress in the store,” Palmer said.
Palmer said bookselling is a vulnerable industry and having an extra layer of protection and assistance is important to those working at the bookstore.
“A big part of it was solidifying protections for future employees, and in general, the store,” Palmer said.
The store is very supportive of unions and labor rights, even going so far as to voluntarily recognize the union, Palmer said.
“We have a labor rights and organizing section, we have a ‘Richmond is for Unions’ sign in the window, we were very vocal about supporting the UPS strike,” Palmer said. “So it wasn’t necessarily a surprise or antithetical to the beliefs of the store.”
The specifics of the union contract are still under negotiation. Palmer said she hopes to see a system for “technical things” including grievance processes, hiring procedures and specific roles, as well as an annual cost-of-living raise following cost increases in Virginia.
“Now, going into nearly our third year of business and having new, different staff, we want to solidify the security for everybody involved and who might be involved in the future,” Palmer said.
Palmer said she hopes other members of the community, especially small businesses, can look into unionizing.
“We really want to show them that it’s not necessarily combative or scary,” Palmer said. “It can be a really easy process, very respectful and all around beneficial for the business, the employees, the owners and then the community as a whole.”
Neda Massalha, who also works at the store, said coming from a corporate bookstore background into a local bookshop made the experience of unionizing more valuable.
“I was really excited to be able to do what I really love and focus on community efforts,” Massalha said.
Massalha said the response has been overwhelmingly positive.
“We’ve already had a lot of encouraging messages and comments from people within the community,” Massalha said.
