Greetings all! My name is Tobias. In addition to being a proud USU member, I work in the Music Library at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. My responsibilities here (to name a few!) include providing reference assistance to library users, performing bindery preparations on inbound musical scores & literature materials, and monitoring the environmental conditions of our rare & special collections items. The near-choreographic interplay between notation and the archive intrigues me deeply, and I am grateful that it represents the primary metaphoric site of my work at U-M.
The affection I have for my position is not without complication, though. Annual salary increases for university staff continue to fall short of local inflation, often to such a degree that our “merit raises” are, in effect, merit pay cuts. Since becoming an organizer with USU, I’ve learned that many of us at U-M, regardless of department, share a similar ambivalence: while we find satisfaction in our day-to-day work, we feel that that satisfaction is compromised by unsustainable wages, flimsy benefits, and inadequate employee protections. I, myself, find it difficult to experience joy on the clock without the immediate sense that that joy is being hijacked by our institution—as though my own feelings are a pittance, covertly harvested, and then “generously” paid back to me by the University.
If there are aspects of your work that you wish were different: know that you are not alone, that your work can become different, and that you should have the capacity to change it. From what I’ve witnessed, our worker-community is one of great imagination and unassailable hope. Now is the time for us to come together around these principles, and in all other possible corridors of solidarity.
University Staff United affords one of our most powerful avenues for ushering in the futures we want to see! It’s a perfect day to sign your membership card if you haven’t already had the chance, and should you have questions about our union—or if you would like to say hello!! —please send me an email, or (better yet) come visit the music library! I love meeting my neighbors, and I’m looking forward to the world we will build together.
In Solidarity,
Tobias