Originally published in the Summer/Fall 2025 edition of the Virginia Defender, issue 77, printed December 11. Reproduced here for accessibility and archival purposes. To find other stories in the Summer/Fall 2025 issue or to download the full PDF, see this post. For other issues dating back to 2012, see the Full Issues page.

Staff Report

Shelf Life Books in Richmond’s Carytown offers a look at the difficult path workers face when organizing for better pay and working conditions.

In June 2024, workers at Shelf Life Books, described by its owners as the largest independent bookstore in Richmond, announced they had chosen to form a union. The workers also shared that store ownership had chosen to voluntarily recognize their union, and that workers had decided to affiliate with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. UFCW has helped workers unionize at several independent bookstores across the U.S., so the path to a union at Shelf Life looked promising.

This past summer, however, a reporter from the Defender learned that formal unionization had run into several roadblocks.

Even after a union is recognized by an employer or by an employee vote facilitated by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), workers and bosses must agree to a contract that dictates rules for pay, benefits and working conditions.

This contract, known as a collective bargaining agreement, ensures that workers can count on the concessions they have won from their employers being respected by force of law. It was at this stage that the union drive stalled, one worker said.

Many of the concessions that the contract negotiations had produced had already been put into place by the owners, while the prospect of union dues did not appeal to many part-time employees with short weekly hours. Further, the Shelf Life employee said there were some problems with the negotiations themselves.

In combination with these factors and the departure from Shelf Life of many employees who had formed the nucleus of the unionization effort, the Shelf Life Union was not formalized with a collective bargaining agreement.

On the one hand, this story shows just how difficult labor organizing can be. Legal and bureaucratic pitfalls put a serious distance between workers who want to form a union and the legal certification of that union. Even when workers want a union – and the boss concedes – many workers still struggle to get a collective bargaining agreement signed.

On the other hand, the Shelf Life workers’ fight for respect and compensation from their employer wasn’t fought in vain. Even if their efforts did not result in a conventional union contract, the bookstore employee said, the pressure the workers placed on the shop owners by speaking out and acting collectively prompted their bosses to improve staffing and employee working conditions.

Shelf Life workers can inspire Richmond workers to start – or stay in – the fight to take a greater share of the value they create at their jobs, despite the ups and downs that that effort may take.