Times Colonist: 2008 February 18
http://www.cupe410.ca/
People who already have books requested to keep them at home
All nine branches of Greater Victoria’s Public Library system will be closed and behind picket lines this morning as a long-simmering labour dispute reaches the boiling point.
Saying it could no longer afford to pay workers 100 per cent of their salary for 75 per cent of the work, the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association locked out 250 members of CUPE 410 at 5 p.m. yesterday.
“I think the last straw is [that] they’re working at 75 per cent efficiencies. We’re paying them full wages and we’re at an impasse,” said Ron Brunsden, association negotiator. “They’re the ones that went on strike, and there comes a time when employers have to say: ‘We just can’t continue on this basis.’ ”
Ed Seedhouse, president of the CUPE local, said his members are ready for a fight.
“Up to now, I’m getting nothing but absolute determination,” he said.
Workers will receive the standard strike pay from CUPE’s national and provincial coffers. That means for a week of picketing four hours a day, members will receive $250 in non-taxable pay.
The library workers are seeking pay equity with city of Victoria employees — something they say the employer agreed to a decade ago but has failed to deliver.
Without a contract for more than a year and in a legal position to strike since Sept. 4, the workers have staged a variety of job actions, including rotating strikes totalling 10 days.
The union has closed branches during lunch hour, stopped collecting late fees and fines, and shut down computer terminals.
Brunsden said the union’s demands would cost an additional $1.8 million a year.
“And they’re not underpaid compared to other library workers in the library industry,” he said. “It’s no different than the 85-day strike in Vancouver. Our library workers are not underpaid.”
Seedhouse said the library agreed in 1992 to compare library workers with city workers for the purpose of pay equity. “The comparison has been done and we know the relationship between the jobs. But the funding has never come through.”
For example, the union says, a parking-lot attendant at the parkade beneath the Broughton Street main library is paid $20.03 an hour, while a library clerk who checks out books is paid $17.58.
A librarian with six years of post-secondary education is paid $27.66 an hour, while a research analyst with the city, who likely also has post-secondary education, is paid $30.97.
Seedhouse said the union is prepared to see the increases phased in.
Informal discussions are continuing through mediator Grant McArthur.
Brunsden said McArthur won’t bring the sides together unless there’s some movement in the respective positions.
Brunsden said a book dropoff box will be open at the central branch downtown, but all others will be closed. Eight managers in the library system will continue to work.
“All fines will be waived,” he said. “We just want our patrons to hang on to the books, to keep them at home — keep them secure until this dustup is finished.”
Central Saanich Coun. Chris Graham, chairman of the library board, has been getting an earful about the situation; the union posted his name and phone number for people to call about the dispute.
