*UPDATE JULY 28 2021*

After nine days of industrial action, RAFFWU members at Better Read Than Dead unanimously endorsed an in-principle agreement on the evening of July 27 with the store’s management. Their historic campaign has delivered a landmark agreement in the retail sector.

Members have lifted all industrial action and the lock-out instituted by management has ended. 

Better Read management have agreed to these new workplace conditions —

• Conversion to permanent, ongoing employment for all members engaged on a casual basis who which to convert;
• Converted permanent part-time workers to be paid a base rate of $1 per hour more than the Award minimum, with penalty and other rates on top;
• A planned pathway to a $25 per hour living wage;
• Classification of workers at least at Retail Employee Level 3 by the Award, following probationary periods;
• A minimum of four weeks consultation with members over any major changes at the store; six weeks notice of any redundancy; rights to redeployment and severance pay;
• Full restoration of 100% penalty rates for shifts worked on Sundays;
• Abolition of Junior Rates following probationary periods;
• A full suite of health and safety clauses, policies and rights;
• 20 days paid domestic violence leave for any worker experiencing or supporting those who are experiencing domestic violence; and
• 26 weeks paid parental leave.

These agreed upon conditions represent a historic achievement by unionised workers in Australian retail. Each of these conditions is superior to any major retail or fast food agreement currently in place in Australia. They show us what is possible when workers organise together in a fighting union and implement direct industrial action.

We thank all 295 of you who signed the open letter (preserved below) in solidarity with Better Read Than Dead booksellers. Such acts of solidarity are more than symbolic — they are a means by which we can act collectively, and conceive of our collective power. As authors we need booksellers — as workers we need each other.

On their behalf, author and Better Read bookseller Madeleine Gray says —

The workers at Better Read Than Dead are thrilled with this development, and we cannot thank our union, our community supporters, and you, our comrades-in-arms, enough. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 

This has been a long, hard battle for job security and workplace safety, and it has not been without casualties. But our message is this: unions work. Solidarity works. We hope our campaign can inspire other workers and workplaces to fight for what they deserve, whether they be in retail, or the literary industry, or any other industry. Everyone is in this for everyone else.

*

A book in inventory is little more than a stack of paper. Whenever books move off shelves and into readers’ hearts and minds – whenever they truly come alive – we as authors and as readers have booksellers to thank. 

For more than two decades, every time a book has been moved into the hands of a reader from the shelves of Newtown bookshop Better Read Than Dead, it has been thanks to booksellers who all the while have lacked the benefit of basic workplace protections and conditions.

*

Most of the workers at Better Read Than Dead are on casual contracts, with no job security or the option of converting from casual to permanent employment. They are being paid the minimum award rate. No employee at Better Read has had the benefit of an OHS policy, or basic protections from discrimination or sexual harassment.

Last year, Better Read booksellers came together to do something about this. They sought to unionise their workplace as members of the Retail and Fast Food Workers Union (RAFFWU), and they sought an enterprise agreement from their employer that would deliver them a living wage, job security and workplace policies on safety, sexual harassment and discrimination. Better Read initially agreed to bargain with the workers through their lawyers, but withdrew a week later. 

A majority of workers then applied to the Fair Work Commission to compel Better Read to bargain with them. Three booksellers who posted about the store’s unionisation efforts on social media were sent cease and desist letters via Better Read’s lawyer. These letters also contained threats of criminal prosecution. Two of these booksellers were then issued “show cause” termination notices by their employer, where they were asked to explain why they shouldn’t be sacked for publicising their union organising.

The employer then announced that it could no longer subsidise the running of the bookstore, and began a process of restructure and redundancies, without consulting workers.

The first bookseller retrenched was a RAFFWU delegate, committee member and bargaining team representative. The second employee made redundant was a store manager who was instrumental in bringing workers together. Now, Better Read operates as a bookstore without a store manager. These retrenchments were a naked attempt at union-busting.

But, the booksellers have guts and every reason to keep going. In the words of writer and Better Read Than Dead worker Madeleine Gray: ‘Every single person here is doing this for everyone else’.

On 13 July, RAFFWU members at Better Read Than Dead voted in the first retail protected action ballot, outside of meat workers, in fifty years. The result gives them the option of future industrial action.

*UPDATE*

On 19 July, unionised booksellers at BRTD began industrial action due to the employer’s refusal to negotiate on workers’ demands for a living wage of $25/hr, health, safety and anti-harassment policies, and job security. Workers instituted a ban on cash handling, changing window displays and processing online orders. Because of their industrial action, workers at BRTD have now been served notice that as of Monday 26 July, they will be locked out by the employer – in the middle of a city-wide COVID lockdown.

As authors, we entrust our work – which is our words – into the hands of booksellers. Without booksellers, all of us are deprived of the community that literature builds. Our whole literary ecosystem relies on them. When they are put into precarity – through casual contracts, unlivable wages, without protection from sexual harassment, workplace hazards and discrimination – that is a literary ecosystem failing them. 

We cannot ask them to bear this in our name. We as authors cannot expect booksellers to sell our books when their own employment conditions are untenable. 

Many authors have been or are booksellers. Many workers in bookstores, publishing and libraries live every day with the reality of insecure employment, low wages and a lack of basic protections in their workplaces. They do this with our words in their hands.

We call on Better Read Than Dead to end its union busting and its lockout of unionised workers, turn up to the bargaining table in good faith, and agree to the workers’ demands for:

• Occupational health and safety policies
• Anti-bullying, harassment and discrimination policies
• Job security, including the right for workers to convert from casual to permanent employment, proper notice of redundancies and the right to severance pay 
• A living wage of $25 per hour.

The union campaign at Better Read Than Dead is a litmus test for Australian literature and for retail working conditions across the continent. The publishing industry – of which bookselling is one part – likes to congratulate itself on its social progressivism, but this means nothing without material conditions for workers in the industry that grant those workers job security and dignity of life. 

A bookshop like Better Read can no longer hide behind the veneer of being a ‘progressive’ employer while they suppress their workers’ organising for a fair workplace, nor can we as authors stand aside and let them. 

We stand with each other. Everyone is in this for everyone else.

Signed,

Safdar Ahmed, Still Alive (2021)
Adam Aitken, Archipelago (2017)
Ali Alizadeh, Towards the End (2020)
Elizabeth Allen, Present (2017)
Patrick Allington, Rise & Shine (2020)
Dennis Altman, God save the Queen: the strange persistence of monarchies (2021)
Eunice Andrada, Flood Damages (2018)
Rachel Ang, Drawing Power (2019)
Evelyn Araluen, Dropbear (2021)
Romy Ash, Floundering 2012
Sarah Attfield, Class on Screen: The Global Working Class in Contemporary Cinema (2020)
Welton B. Marsland, By the Currawong’s Call (2017)
Allie Banks, The Book of Bitch (2019)
Inez Baranay, Turn Left at Venus (2019)
Anne Barneston, Customer Service Wolf (2019)
Emma Batchelor, Now that I see you (2021)
Caroline Baum, Only: A Singular Memoir (2017)
Mandy Beaumont, Wild, Fearless Chests (2020)
Kavita Bedford, Friends and Dark Shapes (2021)
Sophie Beer, How to Say Hello (2021)
Maxine Beneba Clarke, When We Say Black Lives Matter (2020)
Vanessa Berry, Gentle and Fierce (2021)
Judith Beveridge, Sun Music: New and Selected Poems (2018)
Miro Bilbrough, In the Time of the Manaroans (2020)
Aaron Billings, Mystical Boy Scout 4 (2018)
Danielle Binks, The Year the Maps Changed (2020)
Rachel Binsalleh, Alfred’s War (2018)
Tony Birch, The White Girl (2019)
Robert Boncardo, Mallarmé and the Politics of Literature (2018)
Dan Box, I Catch Killers (2020)
James Bradley, Ghost Species (2020)
Leonie Brialey, Psychic Hotline (2018)
David Brophy, China Panic (2021)
Pam Brown, Click here for what we do (2018)
Amy Brown, Neon Daze (2019)
Katie Bryan, Growing up Aboriginal in Australia (2018)
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Michael Burge, Tank Water (2021)
joanne burns, apparently (2019)
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Richard Cooke, On Robyn Davidson (2020)
Melinda Cooper, Family Values (2017)
Tim Coronel, How to Be an Author in Australia anthology (2021)
Molly Crabapple, Brothers of The Gun (2018)
Rico Craig, Our Tongues Are Songs (2021)
Anwen Crawford, No Document (2021)
Emily Crocker, In The Drink (2021)
Christopher Currie, Clancy of the Undertow (2015)
Lauren-Aimee Curtis, Dolores (2019)
Alexandra Dane, Gender & Prestige in Literature (2020).
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Jared Davidson, Dead Letters: Censorship and Subversion in New Zealand (2019)
Jocelyn Deane, The Second Person (2020)
Tricia Dearborn, Autobiochemistry (2019)
Michelle de Kretser, On Shirley Hazzard (2019)
Shastra Deo, The Agonist (2017)
Jessica Dettmann, This Has Been Absolutely Lovely (2021)
Jacinta Dietrich, This Is Us Now (2021)
Matilda Dixon-Smith, Change-makers: the pin-up book of pioneers, troublemakers and radicals (2018)
Briohny Doyle, Echolalia (2021)
Dave Drayton, P(oe)Ms’ (2017)
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Monica Dux, Lapsed (2021)
Max Easton, The Magpie Wing (2021)
Jack Ellis, The Best Feeling of All (2014)
Laura Elvery, Ordinary Matter (2020)
Anne Elvey, Obligations of Voice (2021)
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Alison Evans, Euphoria Kids (2020)
Stuart Everly-Wilson, Low Expectations (2021)
Giles Fielke, Memo Review (2021)
Rosie Findlay, Personal Style Blogs: Appearances that Fascinate (2017)
Katherine Firth, Your PhD Survival Guide (2021)
Toby Fitch, Sydney Spleen (2021)
Chris Flynn, Mammoth (2020)
James Foley, Chickensaurus (2020)
Clementine Ford, Boy Will Be Boys (2018)
Jason Fox, How To Lead A Quest (2016)
Zana Fraillon, The Lost Soul Atlas (2020)
Peggy Frew, Islands (2019)
Emily Gale, Elsewhere Girls (2021)
Alex Gallagher, Parenthetical Bodies (2017)
Kelly Gardiner, Vigil (2021)
Nikki Gemmell, The Ripping Tree (2021)
Sam George-Allen, Witches: what women do together (2019)
Karen Ginnane, When Days Tilt (2021)
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Roanna Gonsalves, The Permanent Resident (2016)
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Ben Gook, Divided Subjects, Invisible Borders (2016)
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Elias Greig, I Can’t Remember the Title but the Cover is Blue (2018)
Eloise Grills, If You’re Sexy and You Know it Slap Your Hands (2019)
Lana Guineay, Dark Wave (2020)
Eda Gunaydin, Second City (2021)
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Clare Hallifax, Never Forget (2020)
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Vicki Hastrich, Night Fishing (2019)
Amani Haydar, The Mother Wound (2021)
Jack Heath, Hideout (2020)
Anita Heiss, Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray (2021)
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Sally Hetherington OAM, It’s Not About Me (2019)
Jess Hill, See What You Made Me Do (2019)
Christina Ho, Aspiration and Anxiety: Asian Migrants and Australian Schooling (2020)
Kate Holden, The Winter Road (2021)
Luke Horton, The Fogging (2020)
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Rebecca Huntley, How To Talk About Climate Change (2020)
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Linda Jaivin, The Shortest History of China (2021)
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Susan Johnson, From Where I Fell (2021)
Gail Jones, Our Shadows (2020)
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Mireille Juchau, The World Without Us (2016)
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Mat Larkin, The Orchard Underground (2018)
Benjamin Law, Growing Up Queer in Australia (2019)
Bri Lee, Who Gets to be Smart (2021)
Harold Legaspi, Letters in Language (2021)
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Alana Lentin, Why Race Still Matters (2020)
Patrick Lenton, Sexy Tales of Paleontology (2021)
James Ley, The Australian Face (2014)
Bella Li, Theory of Colours (2021)
Kate Lilley, Tilt (2018)
SL Lim, Revenge: Murder in Three Parts (2020)
Antony Loewenstein, Pills, Powder and Smoke: Inside the Bloody War on Drugs (2019)
Daniel Lopez, Lukács: Praxis and the Absolute (2019)
Astrid Lorange, Homework (2021)
Melissa Lucashenko, Too Much Lip (2018)
Tessa Lunney, Autumn Leaves, 1922 (2021)
Anna MacDonald, A Jealous Tide (2020)
Jennifer Mackenzie, Navigable Ink (2020)
Emily Maguire, Love Objects (2021)
Annetta Mallon, Ageism and risk in the coronavirus pandemic 2021
Ellie Marney, None Shall Sleep (2020)
David Marr, My Country (2018)
Kylie Maslen, Show Me Where It Hurts: Living with Invisible Illness (2020) 
Jodi McAlister, Misrule (2019)
Laura McPhee-Browne, Cherry Beach (2020)
Dervla McTiernan, The Good Turn (2020)
Helen Meany, UTS Writers’ Anthology: Infinite Threads (2019)
Catriona Menzies-Pike, Second City (2021)
Angela Meyer, A Superior Spectre (2018)
Kate Mildenhall, The Mother Fault (2020)
Jennifer Mills, The Airways (2021)
Jazz Money, how to make a basket (2021)
Mark Mordue, Boy on Fire – The Young Nick Cave (2020)
Anna Morgan, Before The Beginning (2020)
Di Morrissey, Before The Storm (2020)
Rick Morton, My Year of Living Vulnerably (2021)
Joshua Mostafa, Offshore (2019)
Fiona Murphy, The Shape of Sound (2021)
Melanie Myers, Meet Me at Lennon’s (2019)
Julianne Negri, The Secret Library of Hummingbird House (2020)
Jonica Newby, Beyond Climate Grief (2021)
Richard Newsome, Stella the Unstoppable (2019)
Jennifer Nguyen, When I die slingshot my ashes into the surface of the moon (2019)
Ali Nissenbaum, contributor, There Is Nothing So Whole as a Broken Heart: Mending the World as Jewish Anarchists (2021)
Simon O’Carrigan, Never Forget (2020)
Mark O’Flynn, Dental Tourism (2019)
Angela O’Keeffe, Night Blue (2021)
Meg O’Shea, Drawing Power (2019)
Firstdog Onthemoon, Carbon-Neutral Adventures of the Indefatigable EnviroTeens (2020)
Elizabeth Owen, Of Chicken and Chives (2005)
Amra Pajalic, Things Nobody Knows But Me (2019)
Marc Pearson, Flamingo Diamond (2016)
Indrani Perera, pas de deux (2019)
Suneeta Peres da Costa, Saudade (2018)
Cathy Perkins, The Shelf Life of Zora Cross (2019)
Jon Piccini, Human Rights in Twentieth Century Australia (2019)
Andrew Pippos, LUCKY’S (2020)
Gerii Pleitez, On the Sunday She Created God (2019)
Shivaun Plozza, The Boy, the Wolf and the StarsT (2020)
Peter Polites, The Pillars (2019)
Shaun Prescott, The Town (2017)
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Christopher Raja, Into The Suburbs, (2020)
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Holly Ringland, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart (2018)
Mirandi Riwoe, Stone Sky Gold Mountain (2020)
Donald Robertson, The Big Beat (2019)
Alice Robinson The Glad Shout (2019)
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Drew Rooke, One Last Spin: the power and peril of the pokies (2018)
Liz Ross, Stuff the Accord! Pay Up! (2020)
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Evie Wyld, The Bass Rock (2020)
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