Host: Nicole @ Oblong Books
Participants: John @ Cavalier House Books
Notes:
- Why do bookstore owners fear unions? Can they be useful in keeping booksellers long-term?
- Part of larger overall conversation about sustainability + investment in community / booksellers
- Unions can be useful for any bookstore with several full-time employees; don’t inherently clash with ideas of ownership, payment; unions can’t ask for more than organization can actually give, but allow people to work together and feel ownership in work
- Pivot trade organizations to professional organizations for booksellers? Refocus from bookstores to booksellers, allow booksellers to feel ownership in work without owning store
- Nontraditional models of compensation for booksellers (alongside raised wages as often as possible): education opportunities, farm shares, connecting to community, etc.
- How do we get rid of fear of unions in the bookselling community when they’re ultimately only going to bring about good?
- Lots of other things because that’s what happens when two people talk for 45 minutes and are too invested in the conversation to take notes 🙂
Reimagining Bookstores 