Members of Library Workers United (LWU), a chapter of UE Local 150 in North Carolina, held their first public action on May 11 outside the Wake County Commissioners’ public budget meeting. This rally and the public comments given by workers and their supporters was the culmination of a yearlong campaign against cuts to staff hours in the Wake County Public Library system. (Wake County includes Raleigh, the state’s capital.)
UE Local 150, the North Carolina Public Service Workers Union, organizes public-sector workers at the municipal, county, and state level all across the state. North Carolina state law has banned public-sector workers from collectively bargaining or going on strike since 1959. Library Workers United is a formation within UE Local 150 aimed at organizing library workers across the state.
Wake County libraries have been understaffed for well over a decade, despite the population of Wake County growing by 30 percent since 2014. Wake County has filled their staffing needs over the years by hiring a huge number of temporary workers. These workers do not receive any paid time off, healthcare, or benefits, and are required to work more weekend and evening shifts than permanent staff. Many of these temps have now been employed in the libraries for over 10 years. Due to “budget constraints” the libraries saw a reduction of 30 percent of temporary staff hours at the beginning of 2025-26 fiscal year. As a result, library programs and service offerings to patrons have been reduced, and burnout and turnover among library workers has soared.
Before the cuts, Wake Library Workers United had been operating underground as a pre-majority union. “Our organizing committee had only formed in 2024 with a handful of Wake library workers,” said Alexandra Helms, one of the founding members. “Things really heated up when our temp coworkers lost a ton of their hours in July 2025. We saw there was serious discontent among all of our coworkers and many were looking for a way to take action.”
In September 2025, members began wearing their union buttons at work to bring visibility to the union and the campaign. They also began circulating a workplace petition, which addressed the years of understaffing and demanded a reversal to the recent cuts to staff hours. 215 of the roughly 600 rank-and-file library workers signed the petition.
“This was way more than we expected initially,” said LWU member Daniel Sumerlin. “Many of our coworkers had never heard of the union before this action and many more thought union activity was illegal for public-sector workers in North Carolina. There was a lot of fear and misinformation to combat, and many more coworkers gave us their support even if they were too nervous to sign the petition.”
Library administration and Wake County officials simply ignored the delivery of the petition and refused to communicate directly with the union. With the next county budget cycle underway library workers escalated their message directly to the County commissioners. Over three months library workers and supporters submitted demands for increased library staff hours to every commissioner work meeting which allowed for public comments.
May 11 marked one of the final public comment sessions before the upcoming budget vote. LWU put out statements to the press and rallied its members and the public to show up and speak up at the meeting. A crowd of 40 gathered outside the meeting with a banner and hand painted signs, demanding “fewer tax breaks, more library staff!” UE members chanted “Who are we? UE! We run the library!” Library workers and members of the public gave powerful speeches to the commissioners about the vital role public libraries play in our communities and the untenable working conditions library workers are facing.
After the meeting, two of the commissioners publicly stated they would be reexamining the proposed budget after hearing concerns from library workers; however, subsequent meeting requests from the union to these commissioners have still gone unanswered. On June 1 the Wake County commissioners voted to pass a revised budget for FY 2027, which unfortunately included no revision to the library’s budget or allocated staff hours.
“We’re not surprised the commissioners failed to do the right thing to properly fund our public libraries,” said LWU member Melissa Hutcheson. “We expected this fight would continue into the next budget cycle. But we think our efforts have really legitimized our union in the eyes of many more library workers, both in our system and across the state.”