Category: News

This year is a pretty major milestone for our union family over here in 1857, as we celebrate the TWENTIETH anniversary of Local 1857-F! But their historic impact on the organization goes back even further.

In the the early ‘90s, maintenance workers in Facilities became the very first group of employees at King County Library System to organize. Their courage established a new tradition of labor solidarity and advocacy within our system under the AFSCME / Council 2 banner of Local 1652-LM.

Then in 2006, recognizing that workers are stronger when standing together as one, the members of Local 1652-LM voted to disband and integrate into the much larger union of KCLS workers formed just a few years earlier as Local 1857. When the pages joined up with 1857-M and 1857-F just a year later, Local 1857 became one of the largest unions under Council 2.

After 20 years of 1857-F, we all owe a great debt of gratitude to the courage and effort of the workers in Facilities for bringing union representation to KCLS for the first time. Thank you for your continued hard work in keeping our system running, and for your enduring commitment to solidarity.

Happy 20th Anniversary, 1857-F!

Labor Day isn’t just a great time to buy a new household appliance because of killer deals, it’s also an opportunity to reflect and honor those workers who fought for the rights that we see as bog standard today. Fair wages, safe workplaces, and even the right to form a labor union are all treated as normal expectations in 2026, but they all came about because workers organized, spoke up, and supported one another.

The mission of those workers who rejected complacency and took action is carried on and advanced every day by our own library staff. At a time when libraries across the country are faced with chronic understaffing, wages that don’t keep up with inflation, and attacks on the very idea of libraries themselves, our membership remains committed to fighting for the safety, respect, and staffing levels that our communities deserve.

The labor movement isn’t just something from the late 19th Century. It’s something that we are all a part of. Happy Labor Day to everyone who makes libraries possible through both their skilled labor and their commitment to solidarity!

Hope to see you at the next scheduled Listening Session next Monday, September 14, 2026 at 7:15 PM. It’s open to all 1857 members. The Zoom link was sent to your personal email from C2everett with the subject “Local 1857 Missive for August 28, 2026.” If you cannot find the link please contact eboard@kclsvoice.org.

March is Women’s History Month, a time to highlight and honor women’s contributions to history, culture and society . This year’s theme is “Women Who Tell Stories,” which recognizes “women, past and present, who have been active in all forms of media and storytelling including print, radio, TV, stage, screen, blogs, podcasts, news, and social media.”

As library employees, we have a special role in preserving and sharing women’s stories and achievements. One of these stories is the history of women in labor, which is often missing from textbooks and the media.

Women have always been key to the labor movement, from organizing strikes and unions, to rallying for better working conditions and wages, to documenting and inspiring workers’ struggles for justice. For Women’s History Month, Council 2 compiled a list [PDF] of recommended reading to help expand our appreciation for the under-valued roles women have played in history.

Below is a list of recommended reading from Council 2 highlighting the role of women in history, with links to the KCLS catalog:

• The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice (2017) by Patricia Bell-Scott
• Freedom’s Daughters: The Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement from 1830 to 1970 (2002) by Lynne Olson
• The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II (2014) by Denise Kiernan
• The Good Girls Revolt: How the Women of Newsweek Sued their Bosses and Changed the Workplace (2016) by Lynn Povich
• Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science-and the World (2015) by Rachel Swaby
• Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race (2016) by Margot Lee Shetterly
• Out to Work: A History of Wage-Earning Women in the United States (2003) by Alice Kessler-Harris
• Triangle: The Fire That Changed America (2004), by David Von Drehle
• The Unfinished Revolution: Voices from the Global Fight for Women’s Rights (2012) ed. Minky Worden
• Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way) (2017) by Sue Macy
• With Courage and Cloth: Winning the Fight for a Woman’s Right to Vote (2004) by Ann Bausum
• Women in Pacific Northwest (1989) by Karen Blair

The following books are ones that KCLS does not own, but you can request through Interlibrary Loan (Hi! 👋That’s the department where I work! We welcome your requests!):

• Song of the Stubborn One Thousand: The Watsonville Canning Strike, 1985-87 (2016) by Peter Shapiro
• Jailed for Freedom: American Women Win the Vote (1995) by Doris Stevens
• Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and the Family, from Slavery to the Present (2009) by Jacqueline Jones

Happy Women’s History Month!