Philadelphia – Penn Libraries staff, unionizing as AFSCME DC 47 Local 590 Penn Libraries United, announced this fall the results of their August election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board.

As labor unions gain in popularity, workers’ rights remain under threat. But while private sector workers have the right to form unions under federal law, public service workers lack that same guarantee.

The public sector has finally recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. At the end of last year, there were 22,000 more public service jobs in the nation than in February 2020, just before the pandemic started.

This is cause for celebration for everyone in our communities, but especially for workers of color, who have been historically overrepresented in state and local government jobs.