CUPE Local 410 Strike Blog

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Times-Colonist July 24, 2007
Library staff authorizes strike action

Mediator Grant McArthur has been appointed to work with Greater Victoria library workers and the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association, in an effort to avoid a strike by library employees.
The library workers, members of CUPE Local 410, have voted 90 per cent in favour of striking, if necessary. It’s only the second time in the 60-year history of the local union that they have authorized strike action.
The main issues are pay equity with Victoria civic employees and fair treatment for auxiliary workers, union spokesman Ed Seedhouse said yesterday.
CUPE Local 410 represents 220 library workers in the GVPL system at branches in Victoria, Saanich, Central Saanich, Oak Bay, Esquimalt, Colwood, Langford, Metchosin and View Royal.
No date has been set for mediation.
A full strike would see all branches shut down.
The union has three months to exercise its strike mandate — it was given last week — and must give 72 hours notice.

Times-Colonist August 25
Mediator due next week in capital library dispute

A mediator has been booked for Monday and Tuesday in the dispute between library employees and the association representing the municipalities that pay their wages.
Grant MacArthur is to meet with CUPE 410 and the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association both days.
CUPE 410 represents 220 employees of the Greater Victoria Public Library system. Last month, they voted 90 per cent in favour of a strike.
The main issue is pay equity. Ed Seedhouse, CUPE 410 representative, says members want the same pay as people doing equivalent work for the City of Victoria. Seedhouse said they were promised this 10 years ago, yet it hasn’t materialized.
For example, he said, the parking lot attendant at the parkade beneath the Broughton Street main library is paid $20.03 an hour. A library clerk who checks out books is paid $17.58. A librarian with six years post-secondary education is paid $27.66. A research analyst with the city, who also likely has post-secondary education, is paid $30.97.
The GVPL belongs to its 10 member municipalities, and is governed by a library board. Bargaining for the municipalities is done by the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Board.
That board is challenging the union’s strike vote, saying no wage negotiation had been done before the vote was taken.
The union has two more months to exercise its strike mandate, and must give 72 hours notice before doing so.

Times-Colonist August 29
Library staff poised to strike
Pay equity, treatment of auxiliaries main stumbling blocks
Kim Westad

The union representing Greater Victoria library workers says a strike is “highly likely” after mediator Grant McArthur booked out of negotiations between the two sides yesterday.
“It would take a miracle to prevent a strike,” said Ed Seedhouse, president of CUPE 410, which represents 220 library workers. He couldn’t say when the strike would begin.
Barry Holmes, CEO of the Greater Victoria Public Library system, said “an impasse has been declared.”
The union represents employees of the eight libraries that are part of the system: Bruce Hutchison, Central Library, Emily Carr, Nellie McClung and branches in Esquimalt, Central Saanich, Juan de Fuca and Oak Bay. Together, they have a circulation approaching five million.
A strike would not affect libraries run by the Vancouver Island Regional Library system, or the independent View Royal volunteer library.
The key issue, Seedhouse said, is pay equity and fair treatment of auxiliaries.
The library workers want pay equity with Victoria municipal employees, something they say was promised 10 years ago but never delivered.
For example, Seedhouse said, the 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 also likely has post-secondary education, is paid $30.97.
The library system is funded by its 10 member municipalities. They bargain through the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association, which is expected to receive a report from the management negotiating committee today, said Holmes.
If strike notice is given, management will implement a plan to make some services available, Holmes said. Seven staff are not union members.
The union, which has an executive meeting tomorrow, has to issue 72 hours’ strike notice before any action can be taken. Seedhouse wouldn’t say when it would be issued. “We’ll issue it based on what we think is best for our bargaining position.”
Nobody wants to go on strike, he said.
“We’re not upset with library management. They have very little power. The purse strings are held by the municipalities and their politicians.”
The library has not been on strike in its history, with the exception of a one-hour job action in 1992.
However, employees have voted 90 per cent in favour of strike action, if necessary.
It’s only the second time in the 60-year history of the local union that Victoria library workers have authorized strike action.

Times-Colonist August 31
Library union to issue 72-hour strike notice Tuesday

Capital Region library workers will issue 72-hour strike notice Tuesday, their union representative said today.
But that doesn’t mean the eight branches of the Greater Victoria Public Library system will shut down next Friday.
Ed Seedhouse, president of CUPE Local 410, said a preliminary strike action plan has been made but isn’t being disclosed yet.
The union’s 220 library workers could walk off the job, effectively shutting down libraries s in the GVPL.
But Seedhouse said other options include employees remaining on the job, but “using various creative ways to put pressure on.” Employees could wear armbands or special uniforms, hold study sessions or stage short-term walkouts that could close one or two branches.
Key issues between library workers and the employer are pay equity with municipal workers, something the union said was promised a decade ago, and improved treatment of auxiliary workers.
A mediator who had been working with the two sides withdrew from talks Tuesday.
Seedhouse said the union is ready to go back to bargaining “any time the employer is willing to discuss our key issues.”
The GVPL operates eight library branches: Bruce Hutchison, Central Library, Emily Carr, Nellie McClung and branches in Esquimalt, Central Saanich, Juan de Fuca and Oak Bay. It is funded through contributions from its 10 member municipalities.
Those municipalities should be paying more, Seedhouse said. “Politicians should understand there could be a political price to pay for having libraries closed.”
A strike would not affect libraries run by the Vancouver Island Regional Library system or the independent View Royal volunteer library.

Times-Colonist September 7
Walkout closes Greater Victoria libraries for 3 hours

All eight library branches in the Greater Victoria library system were shut down at 11 a.m. today as 220 unionized workers walked off the job for three hours to protest stalled contract talks.
Ed Seedhouse, president of CUPE 410, said the union is not yet moving to full job action.
“Frankly, we need to learn how to do it right,” said Seedhouse. “We want to apply increasing pressure on the employer with the objective of persuading the employer to come back to the bargaining table with a mandate to bargain the important issues.”
Mediator Grant McArthur booked out of negotiations on Aug. 28.
Barry Holmes, Greater Victoria Public Library system CEO, said then that “an impasse has been declared.”
Seedhouse said this is the first time that the union has closed down all branches in a strike action. In 1992, the union closed one branch for two hours.
“We really want to get service to the public and we regret that we feel at this moment we have no option but to take job action,” he said.
The union is hoping for public support. “I hope they will communicate with their political employees, mainly the municipal councils who work for them, and advise them that they want good library service and a fair collective agreement,” said Seedhouse.
The library workers want pay equity with Victoria municipal employees, something they say was promised 10 years ago.
Seedhouse said the 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 also likely has post-secondary education, is paid $30.97.
The union also wants improved job security and working conditions for auxiliary workers. Seedhouse said people who put the books back on the shelves are defined in the collective agreement as auxiliary and are paid $9.87 and hour and have no job security. Many work more than 30 hours a week and have held the job for years, he said.
People shouldn’t worry about crossing the picket line, said Seedhouse. “We are librarians. We are non-violent, is someone wants to cross our picket line, we’re not going to try and stop them.”
Book drops will remain open during the walkout.
Pickets will be placed only at the main entrances of the branches. “We don’t have any intention of stopping any local CUPE or BCGEU workers today,” said Seedhouse.

Goldstream Gazette Sept. 7
Librarian strike looms
Rudy Haugeneder

Starting today, it might be impossible to get a book out of any branch of the Greater Victoria Public Library.
About 200 library employees and auxiliary workers, members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, local 410, served 72-hour strike notice Tuesday morning.
The strike deadline hit at 7 a.m. today but the union hadn’t decided by press time Wednesday what type of labour action to take — a full strike or rotating strikes at the library system’s nine branches including the Juan de Fuca library.
Tammy Simonds, CUPE spokesperson, said the main issue is pay equity with other municipal workers throughout the Capital Region.
She said local 410, which has been without a contract since January, is the only CUPE local in the region that hasn’t settled with employers.
Talks between the library workers and the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association broke down last week.
The volunteer-run View Royal Library located at View Royal municipal hall is not affected by the labour dispute.

Times-Colonist Sept. 8
Letter to the editor: Library workers’ wages not equitable

The treatment of library workers by the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association is nothing short of shameful.
These workers were promised in writing that they would achieve pay equity with other civic workers by 1996. Here it is, over a decade later, and that pay equity has not been implemented.
I cannot help but wonder if the unwillingness of the GVLRA to deliver on their promise has anything to do with the fact that 80 per cent of library workers are women, and women’s work is still undervalued.
The actions of the GVLRA are an embarrassment to all people living in the Greater Victoria region.
I urge every person in the capital region to contact their local municipal authorities and pressure them into fulfilling their promise and give library workers proper pay equity.

Susan-Rose Slatkoff,
Victoria.

Victoria News Sept. 12
More action planned in library dispute
Keith Vass

More shutdowns are likely on the way at the Greater Victoria Public Library.
The union representing library workers says it plans to escalate job action until the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association, which represents the library, is willing to return to the bargaining table.
Library workers at all eight GVPL branches walked off the job for three hours Friday morning in their first action after giving the GVPL 72-hour strike notice last Tuesday.
The union’s strike committee was to meet Monday evening (after the News’ deadline) to decide on a timetable for further actions.
Ed Seedhouse, president of CUPE Local 410, said the members he spoke with on the picket lines Friday were ready for a general strike.
“That’s pretty much what I was being told, we want to be out on the street now, we want to get this thing settled,” he said.
He added the union is in a position to shut library services down “whenever we want with no further notice.”
The union is seeking wage parity with city workers doing comparable work and better treatment for auxiliary workers.
The union says library wages are between $2.80 to $9.57 lower than comparable jobs at Victoria City Hall, while auxiliary staff frequently work more than 30 hours a week but lack the benefits and security offered full-time staff.
Seedhouse said his members regret cutting off library services, but were determined not to give up until without concessions from the GVPL board.
Talks between the two sides broke off Aug. 31, and no further meetings were scheduled as of Monday afternoon.
Library officials will keep the public informed about service disruptions through the library website, but it’s still doesn’t know what the union has planned.
The library has already cancelled a book sale that had been planned for this weekend at the Nellie McClung branch due to the labour trouble.
Library officials were unavailable for comment Monday afternoon.

Monday Magazine Sept. 12
Library workers strike

The September 7 strike by library workers only lasted three hours, but there will be more to come if local politicians don’t offer a better deal.
“I don’t think the municipalities realize it, but Victoria is a library town and we’re getting lots of support from the public,” says Ed Seedhouse, president of CUPE 410, which represents the library workers. The union negotiates with the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association, but Seedhouse says it’s the local politicians who are responsible. “The real decisions are being made at the mayor and council levels. They’re the real decision makers.”
Fifteen years ago library workers were promised pay equity with municipal workers doing similar jobs. Now pay equity is something the GVLRA won’t even consider, says Seedhouse. “At the rate we’re going we’ll never catch up.”
The strike was the first time library workers in Victoria have closed all the city’s branches to support their own contract bargaining.

Times-Colonist Sept. 14
All libraries open today following protest: Union gives warning of more job action

All eight library branches in the Greater Victoria library system will be open today following a second three-hour walkout to protest stalled contract talks.
But the union representing 220 library workers is threatening escalating job action if there’s no return to the bargaining table by Sept. 21.
“We think the ball is now in the employer’s court to come back and invite us to the bargaining table,” Ed Seedhouse, president of CUPE 410, said yesterday. “We’ve taken strike action. We’ve taken a strike vote. We’re ready to go back to the table at any time.”
Mediator Grant McArthur booked out of negotiations on Aug. 28.
Barry Holmes, CEO of the library system, could not be reached for comment.
Yesterday, all branches — Bruce Hutchison, Central Library, Emily Carr, Nellie McClung and branches in Esquimalt, Juan de Fuca, Central Saanich and Oak Bay — were shut between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. when employees walked off the job.
The afternoon protest was deliberately held at a time when the library is busy with students, said Seedhouse. Branches were open, however, until 9 p.m.
Peter McPherson tried to get into the library until he was told job action was taking place. “I wish them luck,” said McPherson. “I wouldn’t cross a picket line.”
Three Japanese students studying at Pacific Gateway were confused by the lockout.
“We can’t use computers,” said Rina Saito, who was upset. “We were going to e-mail our friends in Japan.”
Victoria senior Sue Bjornstad also tried to enter the library but was stopped. “It’s tiresome,” she said, shaking her head. “I haven’t anything to read. I didn’t know libraries go on strike.” She added that she would probably return today to get a book.
No further job action is planned until Sept. 21, said Seedhouse. If the two sides are not back at the table, the libraries will be closed all day next Friday. Library workers are also planning a rally at City Hall that day. The strike committee will then decide what further action to take.
“We really don’t want to go on an extended strike, but if we have to we will,” said Seedhouse. “If we can’t bring the employer back to the table by this and public pressure, we have no choice but to ratchet it up.”
The library workers want pay equity with Victoria municipal employees, something they say was promised 10 years ago.
Seedhouse said the 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 also likely has post-secondary education, is paid $30.97.
The union also wants improved job security and working conditions for auxiliary workers. People who shelve books are defined in the collective agreement as auxiliary and are paid $9.87 an hour and have no job security. Many work more than 30 hours a week and have held the job for years, said Seedhouse.
Library workers walked off the job for three hours last Friday.
Information about library closures and strike action will be posted on the library website at www.gvpl.ca.

Victoria News Sept. 14
Library workers job action on hold

Greater Victoria Public Library workers will hold off on job actions for a week to give the library board time to come to the table to avoid further labour disruptions.
Library staff at all Greater Victoria Public Library branches walked off the job for four hours yesterday n their second job action in less than a week.
Ed Seedhouse, president of CUPE Local 410, said the action was timed to send a message.
If the library, which is represented by the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association, doesn’t come back to the table, there will be “something more disruptive” starting Sept. 21, Seedhouse said.
The library workers are asking for wage parity with Victoria City Hall workers and better treatment for auxiliary staff.

CFAX Sept. 18
GR. VICTORIA LIBRARY SHUTDOWN EXPECTED FRIDAY

IT SOUNDS AS IF GREATER VICTORIA PUBLIC LIBRARY WORKERS WILL BE OFF THE JOB ALL DAY THIS FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21st.

CUPE LOCAL 410 HAD BEEN ON RECORD AS READY TO SHUT DOWN ALL EIGHT G.V.P.L. BRANCHES FOR A WHOLE DAY IF THEY WEREN’T BACK INTO COLLECTIVE BARGAINING NEGOTIATIONS THIS WEEK.

ED SEEDHOUSE SPEAKS FOR MORE THAN 200 LIBRARY WORKERS — HE SAYS WORD HAS COME FROM LIBRARY ADMINISTRATION WITHIN THE LAST DAY THAT TALKS WILL NOT RESUME THIS WEEK.

“THAT MEANS WE WILL BE PROCEEDING WITH A FULL DAY JOB ACTION ON FRIDAY ALONG WITH A MARCH [TO] AND RALLY AT CENTENNIAL SQUARE,” SEEDHOUSE SAYS.

THE DISGRUNTLED EMPLOYEES SAY THEY WERE PROMISED A PAY RAISE MORE THAN A DECADE AGO THAT HAS YET TO MATERIALIZE.

THEY’VE STAGED THREE-HOUR WALKOUTS TWICE OVER THE PAST FEW WEEKS.

IF YOU NEED TO USE YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY, YOU MAY WANT TO VISIT BEFORE FRIDAY.

THE JOB ACTION WOULD NOT AFFECT THE VANCOUVER ISLAND REGIONAL LIBRARY BRANCHES IN SOOKE AND SIDNEY.

- IRELAND

CFAX Sept. 21
LIBRARY WORKERS HOLD NOON HOUR RALLY

NINE LOCAL LIBRARIES ARE CLOSED TODAY AS CUPE LOCAL 410, REPRESENTING GREATER VICTORIA LIBRARY WORKERS, CONTINUES THEIR JOB ACTION.

ABOUT 250 CUPE MEMBERS MARCHED FROM THE CENTRAL DOWNTOWN BRANCH ON BROUGHTON STREET TO CENTENNIAL SQUARE THIS AFTERNOON FOR A RALLY.

CUPE 410 SPOKESPERSON ED SEEDHOUSE SAYS THEY HAVE BEEN BETRAYED AT THE BARGAINING TABLE. “POLITICIANS DON’T VALUE LIBRARY WORK THE WAY THEY SHOULD, THEY DON’T VALUE LIBRARY WORKERS AND THEY TREAT US LIKE SECOND CLASS WORKERS…WE’RE NOT AND WE AREN’T GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE.”

VICTORIA HILLSIDE MLA ROB FLEMING SPOKE TO THOSE AT THE RALLY AND SAYS THE CAMPBELL GOVERNMENT CAN AFFORD TO PAY AUXILIARY WORKERS MORE. “EACH AND EVERY YEAR THAT HE HAS BEEN PREMIER, HE HAS BROKEN HIS PROMISE TO YOU, TO THE BC LIBRARY ASSOCIATION AND EVERY OTHER BRITISH COLUMBIAN, AND IT’S TIME TO IMPROVE FUNDING FOR MUNICIPAL LIBRARIES.”

THE UNION SAYS JOB ACTION WILL ESCALATE–HOWEVER THEY WILL BE BACK AT WORK TOMORROW.

- NIKKI EWANYSHYN

Peninsula News Review Sept. 26
Library strike continues
Cat George

Operating hours at the Central Saanich library continue to fluctuate with continued strike action from CUPE 410, the union representing the workers in the Greater Victoria Public Library system.
Last week more than 300 people took part in a march and rally in downtown Victoria, crossing the city from the Central Library to Centennial Square. The day’s strike was the first time that the libraries had ever closed for a full day as part of a job action. Ed Seedhouse, CUPE 410 president, said, “We care so much about the service we give, and we are so very reluctant to deprive our users of it.” He went on to say that the workers had to finally take a stand on the issue of pay equity, which is at the heart of the strike. CUPE 410 says that the municipal governments have promised pay equity between library and municipal workers since 1996 but have never followed through. The union was in legal strike position starting Friday, Sept. 7 and held a short walkout at that time, followed by another on Thursday, Sept. 13, before putting a temporary hold on job action on the hopes that library management would return to negotiations. The employer, however, announced that they had no interest in bargaining.
The Central Saanich library was open again on Monday, Sept. 24, when the Peninsula News Review went to press. Workers there could not say when further job action might take place, but warned that those who wanted to use the library services could expect future disruptions. To contact the library, call 652-2013. The Sidney North Saanich library remains unaffected, as it is part of the Vancouver Island Regional Library, not the GVPL.

Times- Colonist September 27
Library workers hold off on further job action

The union representing 220 library workers is suspending further job action until after the Thanksgiving weekend.
No walkouts or branch closures are planned until after Oct. 8, according to a public notice on the website of the Greater Victoria Public Library.
On Sept. 21, unionized library staff walked off the job for the day and held a rally at Victoria City Hall. Earlier, workers staged a pair of three-hour walkouts.
CUPE Local 410, which represents the workers, wants negotiations on a new contract to resume. Library staff are seeking pay equity with Victoria municipal employees.

Times-Colonist October 1

Letter to the editor: Pay scale unfair to library workers

Employees at the Greater Victoria Public Library are being penalized in two ways in their fight for pay equity. If they were employees of one municipality, such as the City of Victoria, they would already have equal pay for work of equal value. But as an inter-municipal body, the library is the only agency which has not made good on the agreements of the 1990s.
Secondly, if the employees were not primarily women, library work would also be seen as equivalent without question to work at city halls. Even though discrimination against women may not be intentional, it exists in practice. Clerks at Victoria City Hall work in a male-dominated environment and make more than $21 per hour, while clerks at the public library make about $17.50. That’s a shortfall of about $3.50 per hour. Try adding that up over a 10-year period.
It is time for municipal politicians in the 10 member districts to step forward and fund the library in an appropriate and fair manner.
Carol Sherwood,
Victoria.

Letter to the editor: Library workers’ pay more than fair

The union representing library workers wonders why people checking out books make only $17 an hour when a parking-lot attendant in the same building is paid more than $20.
The question that taxpayers (the real employers) should ask is why these workers make twice the minimum wage and are demanding more.
We are told that Canadian productivity is falling. Productivity is falling because unions and complacent public management have created a disconnect between skills and wages.
Drew Yallop,
Victoria.

Times-Colonist October 3
Library workers rejected in bid for council’s ear

Library workers jammed Saanich council chambers this week, but couldn’t make it to council’s version of the check-in counter.
CUPE Local 410 spokesman Ed Seedhouse said yesterday that the municipality refused to hear the group as council said it did not take comments from delegations.
Library workers — almost all are members of CUPE Local 410 — in the Greater Victoria Public Library (GVPL) system took a 90 per cent strike vote last month, saying they want pay equity with municipal workers.
About 100 library employees spilled out of Saanich council chambers into the lobby Monday night.
Since taking the strike vote last month, library employees have had two planned short work stoppages at various branches of the GVPL system.
They have said they won’t take any more job action until after Thanksgiving.

Times-Colonist October 5
Letter to the editor

Re: “Library workers’ pay more than fair,” Oct. 1.
Newly hired circulation staff require two full days of classroom-style training to learn the complex computer software used and the many policies and procedures they will need to know. They must then spend a full week shadowing other employees on the checkout desk to learn the many people skills and methods for handling the demands of working with the public. They are then ready to work a shift on the desk, but with a supervisor close by. The job is intense and challenging and it is only one example of the many complex jobs at the library.
Most of these employees have university degrees, and in the case of librarians two university degrees are required. These people spend many years outside of the workforce not earning an income, paying tuition and living expenses with loans. They do it because they believe in the power of libraries to equalize opportunities for others, to provide resources for literacy and to provide pleasure, learning and knowledge to their communities.
These people deserve our respect and every effort should be made to bring a fair and reasonable conclusion to this dispute.
Ursula Benoit,
Victoria.

Saanich News October 5
Union leans on council

Dozens of library workers pack council meeting to make their point
Flickering shadows bounced off the doors of Saanich Municipal Hall Monday night.
Library workers holding candles were huddled on the hall’s front steps, all but blocking the front doors.
Anyone entering the building to attend Monday’s council meeting had to weave through the maze of bodies chatting about pay equity and council’s deaf ear.
“We thought we would like to get a chance to explain to the people who are in charge what our feelings were because they weren’t getting through,” said CUPE 410 president Ed Seedhouse, who lead the collection of peaceful protestors.
Shortly before the meeting began, the library workers snuffed out their tiny flames and shuffled into council chambers en masse, filling the room to capacity and leaving some attendees standing in the doorway and some in the hallway outside.
The mood in the room was tense from the get-go, although the group sat patiently and listened to the meeting.
Council carried on. It was business as usual, despite one pointed joke from Mayor Frank Leonard about a simple land rezoning (the first item on the agenda) drawing an exceptionally large crowd.
Council didn’t hear from the library workers, nor had they planned to. CUPE 410 was informed ahead of time that they wouldn’t be able to address council during the meeting, but library workers showed up anyway. “We were at the meeting so they would have to tell us to our faces (that they wouldn’t hear from us),” Seedhouse said.
But a council meeting is the wrong venue to hear from large groups such as unions, explained Coun. Leif Wergeland, a former member of the Greater Victoria Library Board.
“It’s a process that’s in place and that’s just the way it is,” he said.
When it comes to disputes such as these, where a union has a conflict with the municipality, it’s up to the bargaining agent, Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association, to carry out the talks, then report to council with the results.
“There is an appropriate process once negotiations are underway,” Coun. Susan Brice said. “Historically, all unions have respected that the bargaining table is where negotiations take place. It would have been very, very unusual for any kind of negotiations to have any sidebar discussions (at a council meeting). It never would be appropriate.”
Wergeland added, “We never get involved with (special interest) groups coming to council, with unions coming to council.”
Seedhouse says the group was just trying to have its voice heard.
CUPE 410 sent an e-mail to council last weekend, wishing to be fitted into Monday’s agenda. When the request was denied, the group showed up anyway.
“They wanted to be a presence make a point, and I believe they did that,” Brice said.
CUPE 410 is asking for what they call pay equity with municipality staff. Seedhouse says library workers are being paid significantly less than municipal workers, while Wergeland says equitable pay was already worked out 15 years ago.
Seedhouse was in disbelief that council would approve the purchase of a new firing range for Saanich police training purposes, but couldn’t spend any more on library workers’ wages. “It was a little hard to hear them say they can’t afford (to pay us fairly).”
When the meeting drew to an end, library workers and the union’s wishes to be heard in the meeting weren’t fulfilled.
“They adjourned like lightning after doing business,” Seedhouse recalled. “ It adjourned so fast I didn’t have time to stick out my hand to say I’d like to speak.
“(Mayor Leonard) immediately left the chambers.”
Other councillors stuck around to hear from library workers before the group went home.
Any official discourse and decisions will continue to be made in camera, as they have been.
CUPE 410 met Tuesday with their strike committee to determine what further action to take.
There are four Greater Victoria Public Libraries in Saanich, which are affected by unhappy library workers: Saanich Centennial, Bruce Hutchison, Emily Carr and Nellie McClung libraries.
Despite the large presence, library workers won’t have made an impact on negotiations, Brice said.
“There is all kinds of information and discussions that go into the mix at the bargaining table,” she said. “I have no belief that pressure tactics will play a role in what is a reason-negotiated settlement.”

Saanich News October 5
Letter to the editor: Leadership needed in Victoria library dispute

Greater Victoria Library employees are in the fourth week of escalating job action that centers on pay equity, a promise more than 10 years overdue.
Unfortunately, if the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association - the employer’s negotiating agency - insists on avoiding this issue, the residents of the Capital Regional District will see more job action: what will this mean for our communities?
The modern library is one of the only organizations that welcomes every citizen regardless of age, education, ethnic or linguistic background and economic status.
The library is a safe and neutral place for tutors, teens and adults to visit and congregate.
We provide free computer education to adults, free access to internet and to word processing for students and job seekers. The library offers materials to shut-ins, talking books to the sight impaired and free access to a huge variety of materials.
Day cares enjoy free story time at all branches and educators rely on the library to assist children in achieving educational goals.
Not everyone uses the library but everyone benefits from the services we proudly provide.
How can further job action be avoided? The Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association needs to return to the bargaining table with a mandate from the municipalities to implement pay equity for library workers.
Close to 4000 postcards from library users have been sent to the municipalities on that effect. They deserve an answer.
We can only hope one of these municipalities will step forward and show some leadership to resolve this long overdue issue.

Gabriela Premat
Victoria

Times-Colonist October 9
Library talks stall
Kim Westad

Library employees are hardly the first who come to mind when you think of placard-wearing, striking workers.
But workers more known for pointing out a good read, researching topics or reading to children may escalate their job action to a full strike this week, as both union and management say they’ve reached an impasse in contract negotiations.
The workers’ union, CUPE Local 410, won’t say what — if any — job action it plans for this week. But a strike that could shut down one of the best-used library systems in Canada is “possible,” says union rep Ed Seedhouse.
“I can’t exclude that at this point.”
The employees have already taken three job actions — a three-hour closure on two days in September at all eight branches, as well as a full day off the job Sept. 21. It is the first job action in the Greater Victoria Public Library system since a two-hour strike in 1992.
The union says the employer has not followed through on a 1992 promise to pay library employees — 80 per cent of whom are women — the way it pays the more male-dominated and higher paid City of Victoria staff.
Library workers say they are paid 20 to 30 per cent less than city staff for what they believe is equal work. Since library workers are largely women, the dispute has become about pay and gender equity. Library pay ranges from $9.81 an hour for those who reshelf materials, to a high of $33.66 an hour for librarians who run branches.
The employer — essentially the 10 municipalities that fund the library board — says that pay equity has already been dealt with. Library workers received a total of 9.5 per cent in pay increases by 2005 for pay equity alone. Their pay is comparable to other libraries in the region and the province.
The employer says the workers have simply looked to one of the higher paid municipalities and said they too should have that pay scale.
This isn’t feasible at a time when there are many competing demands for finite municipal tax money, says Ron Brunsdon, who negotiates on behalf of the municipalities.
Rather than each municipality bargaining individually with the library union, the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association does the bargaining on their behalf. Brunsdon takes direction from a board of directors, comprised of municipal politicians — each member municipality appoints their mayor or councillor — as well as library board chairman Chris Graham.
“I’m not confused about what the message is I’m to take to the bargaining table. We’ve made our best offer. I do not have anything to take back to them,” Brunsdon said.
He says the union’s request would cost taxpayers $1.2 million to $1.8 million. That money would have to be found in municipal budgets that have competing demands, including a new sewage plant, new hospital tower, failing police radio systems and upcoming police and fire department salary negotiations.
“They are putting a spin on it, saying it’s about pay equity to attract public sympathy and support, when in our view, it’s not about pay equity. It’s straight money,” Brunsdon said.
Each side says it’s willing to return to the table if there’s a change in demands.
The employer has offered a 12 per cent wage increase over four years, the same as was accepted in 10 municipalities in the region.
But until library wages are brought up to the level of Victoria municipal workers, says the union, the percentage increases have much less value.
A key issue is one line in a 1992 letter of understanding that is part of the collective agreement. The letter outlines how jobs in each municipality and the library are to be evaluated and pay equity — equal pay for work of equal value — achieved. Each municipality and the library had their own committees dealing with the issue.
The one clause says, “It is understood that positions in the library which are equivalent to positions in the City of Victoria shall be compared for the purposes of job evaluation and pay equity.”
The union says that means that comparable library jobs and City of Victoria jobs should be paid equally. The employer said it meant that when the positions are equal, such as a librarian at the library and a librarian in the city archives, they would be paid the same. It doesn’t mean that disparate jobs would be compared and paid the same higher wage.
“We are asking for what was agreed to, not one cent more,” said Seedhouse. “If they can’t fund what they agreed to, why would anybody else sign a collective agreement with them?”
Seedhouse questions why the municipalities can afford to have increased the pay of municipal workers as part of the pay equity process in the 1990s, but not the library. “Strangely, they just can’t afford it for us,” said Seedhouse.
Brunsdon questioned why pay equity was being brought up now, and not in numerous previous negotiations.
The library union says that comment penalizes them for having faith that the employer would live up to the contract.
“Because of the previous economic and political climate, we decided not to push it, to believe that the system would not fail us,” Seedhouse said. “We are not a militant union. We are slow to anger and don’t like going on strike.”
Libraries that are part of the Greater Victoria Public Library system and that would be affected by job action:
- Bruce Hutchison branch;
- Central library;
- Central Saanich branch;
- Emily Carr branch;
- Esquimalt branch;
- Juan de Fuca branch;
- Nellie McClung branch;
- Oak Bay branch;
- Saanich Centennial branch.
Facts and figures:
- 67.7 per cent of the GVPL’s almost $12-million budget is spent on salaries.
- The average for comparable Canadian libraries is 68.27 per cent.
- The GVPL’s expenditure per capita was $39.85, above the $37.60 average.
- Visits per capita: GVPL was sixth in the country, with 8.6 visits per person.
Source: 2006 Canadian Public Library Statistics

CBC Radio October 10
Victoria-area libraries hit with job action

Librarians in Greater Victoria plan to escalate job action on Wednesday in their efforts to negotiate a pay equity deal that would match their wages with other Victoria-area civic workers.
The chair of the Greater Victoria regional library board, Christopher Graham, said the job action will have an effect, but the libraries will remain open and try to adjust.
More than 200 members of CUPE Local 410 have been in a legal strike position for more than a month.
They have already staged three walkouts, said Olivia Anderson, a branch manager in Saanich, and now they plan to cut programs as part of their work-to-rule strategy.
“We’ll be cancelling all of the drop-in baby times, all of the family story times,” said Anderson on Tuesday.
“In terms of adult programs, there’s a broad range of programs that are instructed by librarians, so user education for seniors will all be cancelled, as well as author talks, book talks. Those will all be cancelled,” she said.
Anderson said librarians feel terrible about cancelling the services, but they also felt they had no choice.
The issue of pay equity is also one of the key issues in the 12-week-old strike by library workers in Vancouver. There, library workers, who are mostly female, say they are underpaid for their jobs compared with pay scales in positions held mostly by males.

Times-Colonist October 10
Letter to the editor: Library workers deserve pay equity

In this day and age, gender-based discrimination should be a thing of the past. Yet workers at the Greater Victoria Public Library, the majority of whom are women, have been forced to go on strike for pay equity.
It is even more appalling that the library’s staff was promised pay equity some 15 years ago. Except for some minor wage adjustments, that promise has not been fulfilled.
The workers’ fight for fair treatment and fair wages continues to be foiled by the spurious notion that “women’s work” does not have the same value as “men’s work.”
That notion, combined with a general lack of knowledge of the complexity of library work, has resulted in library workers being undervalued.
The municipalities that fund the Greater Victoria Public Library implemented pay equity for most of their employees years ago. Why are they now denying the same fair treatment to library workers?
Margaret Louis,
Victoria.

Oak Bay News October 10
Letter to the editor: Re: Library Union holds the public hostage (Letters, Oct. 3).

I disagree that Greater Victoria Public Library workers are holding their patrons hostage. In my opinion, it’s the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association, the bargaining agent for the library board, which is holding library workers hostage by refusing to address the pay equity issue at the bargaining table.
I worked at the library for 22 years on the management side and remember the beginning of the pay equity process in 1992. Fifteen years later and the written promises made to library workers for pay equity with the City of Victoria workers have not been honoured by the library’s funding partners — the area municipalities.
These municipalities honoured pay equity agreements with their employees. Why is the library treated differently?
The library is blessed with great staff so it’s particularly shameful that it’s taken 15 years and counting to redress this fundamental unfairness in wage scales.
Greater Victoria Public Library is well-supported and heavily-used by residents of Greater Victoria as shown by the 2006 report by the Canadian Urban Libraries Council for public libraries in cities.
Our library ranks sixth out of 66 libraries for the number of circulations per capita.
I’m a heavy library user and would really regret a strike. However, in this case right is totally on the library workers’ side.
Barbara Irwin
Victoria

Times-Colonist October 10
Angry library workers reduce services
Kim Westad

Children’s librarian Tracy Kendrick plans on wearing her Alice in Wonderland costume to work until the job dispute that has eight local libraries down to core services today is settled.
“I’m very upset and shocked we have to go this far for pay equity. For me, it’s a social justice issue,” Kendrick said yesterday, holding a placard that said, “Alice is wondering when there will be pay equity for library workers.”
She was among more than 100 library workers who picketed and shut down the Greater Victoria Public Library system’s eight branches for five hours yesterday.
“I think this is gender discrimination and it’s coming out in our wages,” said Kendrick. The workers, 80 per cent of whom are women, want the same rate of pay as City of Victoria employees doing comparable tasks.
Libraries are open today, but with reduced services. It’s the latest job action in a labour dispute between CUPE Local 410, which represents library workers, and the 10 municipalities that pay their wages.
It affects the eight libraries in the GVPL system: the Bruce Hutchison branch, Central Library, Central Saanich, Emily Carr, Esquimalt, Juan de Fuca, Nellie McClung and the Oak Bay Library.
Programs such as literacy for children and adults, children’s story time, seniors’ education, author talks and legal-information clinics are all cancelled as the union increases its job action.
“Unfortunately, at this point we feel we have to demonstrate our resolve by withdrawing services,” said CUPE Local 410 representative Ed Seedhouse. “We have been driven to that extremity against our will and want nothing more than a reasoned discussion of the issues.”
Employees jammed the board meeting of the GVPL at the Central Library on Broughton Street yesterday, spilling outside the packed room that rarely has anyone in the audience.
Seedhouse told the board that the union will agree to third-party binding arbitration on whether pay equity has been reached in the GVPL system. The union will abide by the arbitrator’s findings.
At press time, messages to the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association, which negotiates on behalf of the 10 municipalities, had not been returned to say if they would agree to arbitration.
Earlier, association negotiator Ron Brunsdon said the key issue — pay equity — has already been dealt with, which the union disagrees with.
The union says the labour association agreed a decade ago to pay library workers on par with their counterparts at the City of Victoria.
The labour association said it didn’t agree to that, but but added that it has increased library wages 9.5 per cent to cover pay equity alone over the past decade. The association says library workers are paid on par with other library workers in the province.
Both sides appear to be at an impasse.
The union “would like nothing better” than to return to the bargaining table, Seedhouse said. But it’s difficult to negotiate when no one will talk, he said, noting that labour negotiations are done behind closed doors, where the public is not allowed and where those involved are not allowed to talk about discussions. GVPL chairman Chris Graham said he cannot discuss labour issues because of that.
Libraries are largely funded by municipal taxes. Every year, the library board goes to the municipalities with its budget, asking for approval.
Municipalities have many competing demands for tax dollars. The labour association takes direction from a committee that is composed of the mayor or a councillor from each of the municipalities, as well as the GVPL.
The reduction in library services will continue indefinitely.

CFAX Radio October 11
Binding Arbitration Refused in Library Battle

THE UNION REPRESENTING GREATER VICTORIA LIBRARY WORKERS SAYS THEIR REQUEST FOR BINDING ARBITRATION HAS BEEN REJECTED.
CUPE LOCAL 410 SPOKESPERSON ED SEEDHOUSE SAYS HE HAS HEARD FROM RON BRUNSDON, WHO NEGOTIATES ON BEHALF OF THE MUNICIPALITIES,REFUSING ARBITRATION AROUND THE ISSUE OF PAY EQUITY.
“MR. BRUNSDON HAS COMMUNICATED WITH ME TODAY BY E-MAIL SAYING THAT HE WILL RECOMMEND TO HIS BARGAINING COMMITTEE THAT THEY DO ON ACCEPT AN ARBITRATION AROUND THIS QUESTION.”
SEEDHOUSE SAYS THE UNION WILL BE PRESENT AT THE VICTORIA CITY COUNCIL MEETING TONIGHT AFTER EFFORTS TO BE HEARD HAVE BEEN IGNORED.
MEANWHILE, THERE WERE NO PICKETERS AT THE OPENING OF THE NEW SAANICH CENTENNIAL LIBRARY TODAY.

Oak Bay News October 12
Library programs shelved as job action escalates
Keith Vass

You can still borrow books and other materials from Greater Victoria Public Library branches, but book clubs, classes and meetings at branches are on hold indefinitely.
The union representing the workers, CUPE Local 410, announced it will keep core services running, but literacy programs, drop-in clubs, family storytime sessions and meetings which require a librarian present are on hold in an effort to bring the library’s negotiator back to the table.
Workers at eight GVPL libraries walked off the job for four hours Tuesday, the fourth job action taken by the library workers since they entered a legal strike position Sept. 7.
Roughly 100 CUPE 410 members crammed into the boardroom and spilled down the hall at the Central Victoria branch to listen to union local president Ed Seedhouse address GVPL board members.
The library is represented in labour talks by the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association.
Seedhouse said his presentation wasn’t an attempt to undermine the negotiation process through the GVLRA.
But Seedhouse used the audience with the board to say the union would be willing to go to binding arbitration on their key demand, pay equity with City of Victoria workers, something the union says it was promised 10 years ago.
“We ask you to let that question be decided by a neutral third party, and we’re confident of the result,” Seedhouse said.
While Seedhouse told board member directly about the request for binding arbitration, he waited until after the meeting to announce the service cutbacks to reporters.
“We’re really sorry we were driven to this,” said Seedhouse.
“I say talk to your politicians, they’re the ones who hold the purse strings and they’re the ones who ultimately decide whether we’ll negotiate a fair collective agreement.”
Seedhouse said further service disruptions could follow soon.
ibrary board chairman Chris Graham, who also sits on the GVLRA board, said he couldn’t comment publicly on the state of negotiations, or the offer for binding arbitration.
Barry Holmes, GVPL chief executive officer, said he regrets the loss of the extra programs.
“We’ll try to get the information out, put it up on our website. Certainly it’s going to be an inconvenience to people, certainly some of those services are going to be missed,” he said.
“As long as there isn’t job action, in terms of the doors being closed, we’ll be open for business and people will able to check books out.”

Supplement: A different kind of equal

The union representing GVPL workers acknowledges the 10 municipalities that fund the system have boosted wages nine per cent in recent years and have an offer on the table for a 14 per cent pay raise over the next two years.
But CUPE 410 president Ed Seedhouse says that doesn’t add up to the pay equity with City of Victoria workers they were promised 10 years ago.
Seedhouse said the employer seems to be working from a different understanding of the pay equity issue.
The pay raise being offered would parallel what has been given to municipal workers, but the union says it won’t bring their wages in line because they will be starting at a lower rate.
The union says the gap between the library and city workers varies from $2.80 to $9.57 an hour.
Seedhouse said the comparisons are based on a joint study workers and library management conducted in 2000.
Greater Victoria Labour Relations negotiator Ron Brunsdon, who represents the employer, was not available for comment.

Victoria News October 12
Letter to the editor: Library workers need our support

Re: Library union holds the public hostage. (Letters, Oct. 3.)
Having said that the union has a legitimate reason to strike, Doreen Marion Gee then criticizes the change of venue for a lunch-time lecture series for which she blames the union.
I fail to see how effective industrial action cannot impact on the public but it is worth noting that the union has avoided this action for more than 10 years.
Library workers are loathe to inconvenience the public and for this reason the union has struggled to achieve the promised pay equity by negotiation. It is shameful that the employer refuses to honour a collective agreement dating back to 1992-1993.
If library users who feel inconvenienced directed their criticism to the employer rather than the union, and indicated support for library workers, the dispute might be resolved sooner rather than later.
I, and I hope many others, will live with temporary inconvenience while we support library workers in their struggle for equity, and indicate our appreciation for their consistently high standard of service.
Julie Adamson
Victoria

Times-Colonist October 13
Library job action escalates as Internet disconnected

Public Internet access at the nine library branches run by the Greater Victoria Public Library system was discontinued yesterday as employees increase their job action.
Members of CUPE Local 410, the union representing about 220 library employees in the GVPL, are in a legal strike position. They’ve had several short work stoppages, and are incrementally reducing services. Stopping public access to the 200 or so computers is the latest. The Internet is a popular service in branches.
Librarians have also stopped extra programming at libraries, including such things as literacy and Internet classes, author readings and book clubs.
“We’d rather not do this but because the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association will not come back to the table, we felt it necessary to take further steps,” said Ed Seedhouse, the local union representative.
The labour association represents the 10 municipalities that fund the library system and are essentially the employers.
The key issue is over pay equity.

Monday Magazine October 17
Checking out the GVLRA
Andrew MacLeod

Is the shadowy agency to blame for stalled library talks?
The president of the union representing public library workers, Ed Seedhouse, says all he wants is to present the issues in an open and honest way to the people who make the decisions. If he could, he says, they’d understand the case for paying library workers more. But the way negotiations are structured, he won’t get that chance.
“It’s very frustrating,” says Seedhouse, the president of CUPE 410.
The library has a board of 21 politicians and citizens from the 10 municipalities that share the system. But the board doesn’t negotiate collective agreements with its employees. That’s done by the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association, a low-profile agency that represents several public bodies in their negotiations with their employees. The agency has tenuous links to the library.
“It’s like the GVLRA is not telling people what’s going on,” Seedhouse says. “They’re picking on what they think is an isolated group of women. They think they can single us out and beat us down.”
Ron Brunsdon is the manager and chief negotiator for the GVLRA. He takes direction from a board of 12 directors, all elected politicians, but he also advises them. For example, in an October 11 e-mail responding to Seedhouse’s request that the library’s stalled negotiations go to arbitration, he writes, “Be advised that I shall be recommending to the directors that the collective bargaining process as set out in the Labour Code be respected and followed—not arbitration.”
Negotiations stalled in late August, and the union has been in a legal strike position since September 7. So far the union has temporarily closed branches, suspended library programs, cut public access to the internet at libraries and stopped collecting fines for overdue books, but it has not gone on a full-scale strike. Seedhouse says the union plans to escalate its job actions until a deal is reached.
With talks stopped, Seedhouse says the union doesn’t know as much about the GVLRA as it would like. “They’re shadowy,” he says. They give Brunsdon his mandate, but all of their meetings are held in secret. While some municipalities list their GVLRA representatives on their websites, a full list of directors is hard to find. The agency does not appear to have its own web page. Observes Seedhouse, “This is a public body, funded with public funds.”
To get a list of GVLRA directors, one has to go to the provincial finance ministry’s corporate registry, which happens to be in the same building as the central library branch on Broughton Street. While the list is provided free to members of the media, the registry would charge a member of the public $10 for the two-page print out.
That’s too bad, because for people interested in the library dispute, it includes some interesting reading. The GVLRA, incorporated in 1976, has 12 directors. Three of them have nothing to do with the library, but four municipalities who are members of the library have no representation on the GVLRA at all.
Sidney isn’t part of the library, but it’s mayor, Don Amos, sits on the GVLRA and can have his say on the deal library workers will get. Tiny North Saanich, which is not part of the GVPL either, has both it’s mayor and a councillor on the GVLRA.
Meanwhile, View Royal, the Highlands and Langford all participate in the library, but none of them is represented on the GVLRA. Then there’s Saanich, which has five people on the library board and is home to four of the system’s nine branches. But it doesn’t have anyone on the GVLRA.
The chair of the library board, Central Saanich councillor Christopher Graham, has sat on the GVLRA for four years. The GVLRA works okay for the library, he says. “It’s a good thing and a bad thing. It’s got some benefits and some disadvantages. I think overall it’s a good system.” On the plus side, Graham says, “There are economies of scale. This way we have one negotiator amongst the 14 members. That’s probably one of the biggest advantages of having it.” Any agreement the GVLRA reaches still has to be ratified by the library board, he says, so there’s still control.
The problem, he says, is the library board doesn’t have the flexibility it would have negotiating one-on-one with the union. “It can be a bad thing when it comes to some things that may be specific to our collective agreement,” he says. Nor is it clear to whom the public should direct any concerns, he says. “That’s a tough one.” Saanich is not represented on the GVLRA because it pulled out in the early 1990s. “The tail was wagging the dog,” recalls Carol Pickup, who was then a Saanich councillor. “We were having real problems.”
Contract negotiations and relations with unions should be done with an attitude of respect and “real consultation,” she says. “We didn’t see that going on within the GVLRA envelope at all.” Pickup also pushed to have the school board pull out of the GVLRA, a move that failed but was later made moot by a provincial government order that changed how boards negotiate with their employees.
In the case of the library workers, she says, 15 years ago the GVLRA promised them pay equity with municipal workers in similar jobs. “I don’t think these people have been treated appropriately,” she says. “Why haven’t they done the right thing? To me that’s clearly the right thing.” Asked to whom people should address concerns about the library negotiations, she says, “I would suggest obviously the mayors of the communities that do belong to the GVLRA, but also [Saanich mayor] Frank Leonard because he does have an influence on those other mayors.”
Meeting the library workers’ demands would cost no more than $1.8 million a year, or about $6 per CRD resident. Compared to $300 million for a new hospital tower at the Royal Jubilee or $1 billion for sewage treatment, doing the right thing for library workers is dirt cheap.

Sidebar: Know your GVLRA
This list will cost you 10 bucks

Mayors: Don Amos, Sidney; Chris Causton, Oak Bay; Chris Clement, Esquimalt; Ted Daly, North Saanich; Alan Lowe, Victoria; Jack Mar, Central Saanich; John Ranns, Metchosin

Councillors: Bea Holland, Victoria; Pam Madoff, Victoria; Ernie Robertson, Colwood; Bob Shaw, North Saanich; Chris Graham, Central Saanich & library board chair.

Times-Colonist October 17
Librarians refuse to collect fines as part of job action

Last week Internet service was suspended, and now library fines will go uncollected at Greater Victoria libraries. The situation has developed as part of a labour dispute between the Canadian Union of Public Employees local 410 and the Greater Victoria Public Library system.
Yesterday, union spokesman Ed Seedhouse said the 220 members of the local will not accept payments for overdue fines. If fines total more than $10, borrowing privileges are normally suspended. But circulation clerks will over-ride the automated system, allowing patrons to check out more books.
Union members will accept payment for everything but overdue fines which will remain on patron’s accounts during the dispute, Seedhouse said. Those wanting to pay overdue amounts will be referred to the administration office at the central branch on Broughton Street.
Barry Holmes, CEO of the Greater Victoria Public Library system referred media calls to the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association which did not return messages by press time.

Saanich News October 17
No fines for overdue library books
Keith Vass

If you’ve been holding on to overdue books from the Greater Victoria Public Library system, now might be a good time to take them back – or go get more.
Library workers have stopped collecting fines on overdue material in the latest move in their fight for wage parity with Victoria City Hall staff.
They also plan to override the library’s circulation system to let people who have too many outstanding books to keep borrowing.
The unionized workers have walked off the job temporarily five times since entering a legal strike position Sept. 7. They’ve also pulled several services, such as Internet access and literacy classes.
Ed Seedhouse, president of CUPE Local 410, said the move won’t hurt the library’s finanical bottom line. Fines will stay on a patron’s record, but won’t be collected right now.
Library staff at all eight GVPL branches will continue to collect money for lost books, accounts sent to collections and photocopying and printing charges.
In the provisional operating budget approved at last week’s GVPL board meeting, fines and fees made up five per cent of the library’s projected $12 million revenue for 2007. The lion’s share, $10.5 million, comes in contributions from the GVPL’s 10 member municipalities.
Seedhouse also said he was disappointed that the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association, which represent the GVPL in negotiations, planned to turn the union’s request to send a key issue to binding third-party arbitration, the question of whether the library staff are being paid fairly compared to other municipal workers.
Ron Brunsdon, GVLRA president and chief negotiator, told Seedhouse by e-mail he would recommend to the GVLRA board when it meets next month “that the collective bargaining process as set out in the Labour Code be respected and followed – not arbitration.”
“We’re hoping the [GVLRA] board will override Mr. Brunsdon’s decision,” Seedhouse said.
The employer has offered a 12 per cent pay raise over four years, the same as municipal staff will receive. But the union says that would leave its workers lagging, since library workers are starting up to $9 an hour less than city hall staff doing comparable work.

Oak Bay News October 17
Union refuses to collect fines

Library workers have stopped collecting fines on overdue material in the latest move in their fight for wage parity with Victoria City Hall staff.
They also plan to override the library’s circulation system to let people who have too many outstanding books keep borrowing.
The unionized workers have walked off the job temporarily five times since entering a legal strike position Sept. 7. They’ve also pulled their services from several library programs, including Internet access and literacy classes.
Fines will stay on a patron’s record, they just won’t be collected right now.
Library staff at all eight Greater Victoria Public Library system branches will continue to collect money for lost books, accounts sent to collections and photocopying and printing charges.
In the provisional operating budget approved at last week’s GVPL board meeting, fines and fees made up five per cent of the library’s projected $12-million revenue for 2007.

Goldstream Gazette October 17
Library pickets could hit JDF without warning
Rick Stiebel

Library staff are threatening to turn up the heat in a bid to get back to the bargaining table.
All eight Greater Victoria Public Library branches face the threat of escalating job action by union members, said Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 410 president Ed Seedhouse.
The union may put pickets up at any of the Greater Victoria Public library branches — including the Juan de Fuca branch that serves the West Shore — without notice, Seedhouse said.
The 250 workers, who have been in a legal position to strike since Sept. 7, have already cancelled a number of programs indefinitely, including all early literacy story times, family drop-ins, pre-schooler reading programs, story clubs, Halloween events, class and school visits and outreach presentations.
Adult programs such as continuing education, computer education, alternative health, Chinese medicine, author readings, book talks and sessions are on hold indefinitely as well.
“We’ll probably be announcing more (program cancellations) in the near future,” Seedhouse said. “We don’t like to do that, but we can’t see any other way.”
More program cancellations would be brought in gradually while core services are maintained, Seedhouse said.
Pay equity with city workers is the main issue, Seedhouse said.
A memorandum of agreement in 1992 and further agreements that promised to address the pay equity issue have not been implemented, Seedhouse said.
The GVPL library, their bargaining agent and the 10 municipalities that fund library services have betrayed workers by refusing to pay what they agreed to 15 years ago in a binding agreement, Seedhouse added.
The union told the GVPL board at its Oct. 9 meeting that they would abide by a decision from an independent third party to settle the issue, but the board refused, Seedhouse said.
He said a campaign to have the public put pressure on municipal councils to settle the impasse has resulted in 4,000 letters and postcards.
Coun. John Goudy, Langford’s representative on the GVPL board, said the board asked municipal representatives on Sept. 7 to decline from commenting on the situation.
Although no further talks are scheduled at this time, Seedhouse said “we’re waiting for a call.”
Barry Holmes, CAO for the GVPL, referred any questions about the status of negotiations to Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association negotiator Ron Brunsdon.
Brunsdon could not be reached for comment before the News Gazette’s deadline.

October 19 Peninsula News Review
Letter to the editor

The onus is on those of us who use the library’s vast resources to rally around our library workers who provide services to us in their usual good-natured and efficient manner.
The library workers need our support in their quest for a wage comparable to other City of Victoria workers.
Library workers should not have to beg for what is rightfully theirs – wage equity – nor be made to feel guilty about cutting back on certain programs and services and perhaps strike action. This is completely out of character for them who always have an eagerness to impart knowledge and information to us.
It’s time for library workers to be treated with respect and the dignity they deserve and be given wage equality without delay.
Please, library users, contact anyone in a position to help and who are empathetic to the library workers’ wage equality.
All roads lead to the library and hopefully soon we will once again hear full pulse of its operation.

Times Colonist October 21
Dispute shuts down entire library system

If you’re hoping to curl up with a good book this rainy weekend, you’ll have to look somewhere other than the library.
The ongoing labour dispute between the Greater Victoria Public Library and its unionized workers shut down all nine branches yesterday. They will also be closed today and tomorrow.
The closed branches are: Central Library, Bruce Hutchison Branch, Central Saanich Branch, Emily Car Branch, Esquimalt Branch, Juan de Fuca Branch, Nellie McClung Branch, Oak Bay Branch and Saanich Centennial Branch.
People are asked to keep their books at home until libraries reopen, because return slots will be locked during the closure. No late fees will be charged if you miss a due date, and the library asks that you do not leave your books or other materials outside the closed doors.
The weekend closures are the latest step in escalating job action by CUPE Local 410, which represents 220 library workers.
Already, staff are no longer accepting payments for overdue-book fines (although the fines still accrue on the system for payment later). Public Internet kiosks also have been disconnected, and librarians have refused to run extra programming such as literacy classes, author readings and book clubs.
The dispute centres around pay equity between library workers and City of Victoria workers.
Information about library closures can be found on the web at www.gvpl.ca.

Times-Colonist October 23
Letter to the editor: Library union’s strategy alienating

It’s interesting that most non-government labour disputes in recent history have been settled very quickly. Another supplier for almost any product can easily be found in today’s global market and strikes are punitive for both labour and management.
Unfortunately, not so for public-service unions. Taxpayer dollars are apparently unlimited, and give the unions a false sense of entitlement. In the current strike by CUPE library workers, one senses a “to heck with you” attitude to the public library users. The public Internet computers, very heavily used, have now been shut down as a labour action strategy.
For many of us, these stations have become an essential part of daily living, as the union well knows.
Any sympathy I might have had for their position is now gone. Their position on pay equity seems just another convoluted and contrived way to grab more taxpayer money.
Drew Chatterton,
Victoria.

Monday Magazine October 24
Libraries open for now
Andrew MacLeod

Library workers were back on the job October 23 after shutting down all nine branches of the Greater Victoria Public Library for three days to protest the lack of progress in contract negotiations. Negotiations stalled in August and the union has been in a legal strike position since September 7. It will continue escalating job action until a deal is reached.
The Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association’s manager and chief negotiator, Ron Brunsdon, negotiates on behalf of the library board. Last week Monday reported the library board will get to ratify the contract (“Checking Out the GVLRA,” October 18-24, 2007).
That’s wrong, says library board chair and Central Saanich councillor Christopher Graham. The GVLRA board—which includes representatives from three municipalities that aren’t part of the library, but doesn’t include people from four that are—ratifies the contract. The library board never gets a chance to have a say.

Times-Colonist October 25
Letter to the editor: Library workers deserve support

Re: “Library union’s strategy alienating,” letter, Oct. 22.
The letter-writer finds it “interesting” that non-governmental labour disputes are often settled quickly while public-sector strikes drag on. If this is so, perhaps the reason is that private employers have a singular commitment to their profits above all, while governments don’t necessarily have a strong commitment to maintaining public services.
I find it commendable that the librarians have been so restrained and slow to take job action after their employer has reneged for years on a negotiated commitment to pay equity. Meanwhile, as reported in the TC recently, the employers’ spokesperson attempts to rewrite history to claim that pay equity wasn’t really what was promised.
The letter-writer seems particularly upset about the librarians’ tactic of shutting down the public Internet computers, a service that he asserts is “an essential part of daily living.”
A fair, living wage is also an essential part of daily living.
There is nothing “convoluted” or “contrived” about librarians expecting their employer to honour a promise made long ago.
Marty Hykin,
Victoria.

Peninsula News Review October 26
Police blotter suspect sought in library vandalism

Witnesses outside the Central Saanich library on Clarke Road in Brentwood Bay watched a man board up the book return — after he reacted angrily to finding it closed due to picketing. The man, described as in his 60s, 5’7” tall, stocky, with grey hair and a brown jacket, first arrived around 3 p.m. on Oct. 21 and found the book chute covered with a sign noting it was closed due to ongoing job action at the library. He swore and tore the sign off and walked away with it, returning some time later with screws and plywood, which he used to cover the book chute. He drove off in a dark blue newer model car.

Times Colonist October 27
Contract talks still stalled in library dispute

Negotiations to get nine libraries in the region running at full speed remain shelved as a labour dispute continues between CUPE Local 410, which represents library workers, and the municipalities that pay their wages.
The Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association, which negotiates on behalf of the 10 municipalities, met this week but nothing has changed, said board chairman Ted Daly. The dispute centres on the workers’ demand for pay equity with city employees.
The union has asked for third-party binding arbitration on the issue, but Daly said yesterday “that’s not on.”
Rather, the association wants to continue with the collective bargaining process and is “happy to go back to mediation anytime,” he said.
As a result of the stalemate, CUPE Local 410 representative Ed Seedhouse said the union plans to continue its job action, which has included everything from full-day closures to suspension of programs and Internet service.
“We have some plans in the works but I’m not at liberty to announce those.”
Libraries are largely funded by municipal taxes.
Nine libraries in the GVPL system are affected by the impasse. Offering limited service and no Internet access are: the new Saanich Centennial library, the Bruce Hutchison branch, Central Library, Central Saanich, Emily Carr, Esquimalt, Juan de Fuca, Nellie McClung and the Oak Bay Library.
Both sides in the dispute plan to announce updates next week.

CFAX Radio October 29
New library job action announced

GREATER VICTORIA PUBLIC LIBRARIES ARE GOING TO BE CLOSED THROUGH THE NOON HOUR, FOR THE INDEFINITE FUTURE, AS A RESULT OF JOB ACTION BY CUPE LOCAL 410.
LOCAL PRESIDENT ED SEEDHOUSE SAYS EMPLOYEES WILL ALL BE TAKING THEIR LUNCH BREAK AT THE SAME TIME…12 TO 1.
HE SAYS THE LUNCH HOUR STRATEGY IS A RESPONSE TO MANAGEMENT’S POSITION ON PAY EQUITY…WHICH THE UNION SAYS IS “OUT TO LUNCH”.

Times-Colonist October 30
Library workers order noon-hour shutdown
Kim Westad

Nine libraries in the region closed for an hour over lunch yesterday, the latest job action by members of CUPE Local 410 that represents library workers.
The workers have taken a variety of job actions over the past month, but have not yet gone out on strike, which they are in a legal position to do.
The union represents almost all employees of the Greater Victoria Public Library system, which has nine branches. The employees want pay equity with comparable jobs at the City of Victoria, something they say was promised them more than a decade ago.
However, Ron Brunsdon, the negotiator for the municipalities that fund the library, says pay equity has already been done.
Brunsdon is the negotiator for the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association, which negotiates on behalf of most municipalities in the region. He said the association is willing to return to mediation at the invitation of the union.
Mediator Grant McArthur was involved earlier but booked out when it became clear that both sides were at an impasse. The veteran mediator said then that he would return if either side changes its position or indicates there is room for movement.
Despite the association’s offer to return to mediation, Brunsdon was clear yesterday that its position has not changed. “We’re not going to ratchet (our offer) up. We’ve said how much we’re prepared to spend to buy a four-year contract.”
The union’s position hasn’t changed, either.
“I’m more than willing to sit down and think it through to see if there is some further movement we can make to encourage them to respond to us, but the prospects in that area look bleak,” said CUPE Local 410 representative Ed Seedhouse.
He said the association mentioning returning to mediation when they’re not willing to change their position “feels like they’re playing silly games with us.”
The nine branches will close between noon and 1 p.m. indefinitely.

October 31 Goldstream Gazette
Union snubbing Langford library
Rick Stiebel

Striking library workers won’t take part in any plans for a new library branch in Langford.
“It’s like playing a fiddle while Rome is burning,” said Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) local 410 president Ed Seedhouse in response to the Greater Victoria Public Library board’s decision to appoint a committee to plan a GVPL branch on Goldstream Avenue.
“The institution is in crises and the board is planning for something down the road instead of dealing with the situation at hand.
Most of the planning and implementation work (for a new branch) is done by CUPE members, Seedhouse said. “We did a huge amount of work at the new Centennial branch.”
He stressed that although CUPE has no problem with a new branch in Langford, the union has instructed its members not to take part in planning or implementation of a new branch because of the current labour situation.
“We think the board and our management team should rather be concentrating on getting the parties back to the bargaining table,” Seedhouse said.
Barry Holmes, CAO for the GVPL, said the decision by CUPE is one of many job actions the union has taken.
“Operationally, we do our best to maintain services,” Holmes said. “A new branch in Langford would be exciting and we’ll do our best to make that happen.”
Although about 250 CUPE workers who serve the eight GVPL branches have been in a legal strike position since September, disruptions so far have been limited to the cancellation of some programs and sporadic job action and pickets at rotating branches.
No further talks had been scheduled when the News Gazette went to press.

Monday Magazine October 31
The week - Andrew MacLeod (3 items)

Friends absent from library

The library job action continues to escalate this week—the union started closing all the branches over the lunch hour—but one interested party, the Friends of the Greater Victoria Public Library, has yet to say a public word about the situation.
The friends organize volunteers, raise money and “support the CEO and staff,” according to the organization’s website. In the past they have cooperated with CUPE 410, the library workers’ union—when the friends took legal action last year to prevent Oak Bay from appointing two councillors to the library board, instead of their usual one councillor and one private citizen, it was with financial support from the union.
So surely the friends, which cancelled its September book sale because of the dispute, have an opinion on the current negotiations and the possibility the library will be closed during a strike. Friends president Carol Martin didn’t return a call by deadline, but several sources have said the friends have decided to stay neutral.
“I don’t have any problem with them being neutral,” says friends member and former board chairperson Neil Williams, who makes it clear he speaks for himself and not the group. In September he spoke at a rally to support the library workers. “I had to do it not as a friend,” he says.
“As an individual I think the strikers have a good case,” says Williams. Still, he says, it could be a long time before things at the library are settled. “The buck doesn’t stop anywhere. Who are they on strike against, really? There’s no politician that has to feel responsible for it. It’s like wrestling with Jell-o or something. They can go on strike and nobody feel’s the pain and it’s nobody’s fault.”

Negotiator cagey on own pay

With the library dispute carrying on, and the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association refusing to budge, there’s been some speculation on what salary chief negotiator and manager Ron Brunsdon makes.
“I’m not releasing those figures any more than we need to,” he says. “We’re not a public body. We’re a not for profit.”
Normally public bodies—including the city of Victoria, the Capital Regional District, the provincial government, the school board, the B.C. Lotteries Commission and a long list of other tax-funded organizations—have to report any salary over $75,000. Despite the fact the GVLRA is funded through 10 municipalities—that’s your tax dollars if you live anywhere in the region besides Saanich, Langford, the Highlands or Sooke—it doesn’t meet the provincial finance ministry’s definition of a corporation, so it doesn’t have to say a word about what it’s employees make.
The GVLRA has two employees: Brunsdon and a secretary. There are documents around that suggest they make about $160,000 between them, and Brunsdon says that’s about right.
But he refuses to say how much is his portion. “You want to know my salary? I’m not telling you,” he says. “I don’t think I’m making as much as a CUPE rep.”
Ouch. You can sure see why he’s a negotiator.

Mayor tops news search
Over the years, the GVLRA’s manager and chief negotiator Ron Brunsdon has only found his way into the Times-Colonist just 19 times, according to a search of a news database. Since the 1980 merger of The Victoria Daily Times and The Daily Colonist, the T-C has had a monopoly on daily print news in town, so for fun (okay, we’re news nerds) we ran a few other names to see what gets ink:

Ron Brunsdon: 19; David Turpin: 148; Paris Hilton: 272; Pamela Anderson: 347; Ida Chong: 394; Iona Campagnolo: 439; Britney Spears: 553; Helen Hughes: 563; Steve Nash: 1,574; Alan Lowe: 2,184

CFAX Radio November 5, 2007
Local library workers feels pressure from union

A GREATER VICTORIA LIBRARY WORKER SAYS HE COULD LOSE HIS UNION MEMBERSHIP AND BE FIRED BECAUSE HE IS REFUSING TO TAKE PART IN JOB ACTION BY CUPE LOCAL 410.
RICHARD DE SOUZA, A CHILDREN’S SERVICE CLERK SAYS HE HAS BEEN OPENLY CROSSING PICKET LINES SINCE THE JOB ACTION BEGAN AND HAS RECEIVED WRITTEN AND VERBAL WARNINGS FROM THE UNION.
DE SOUZA SAYS STRIKING IS COUNTERPRODUCTIVE. “FOR ME IT’S PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE, IT’S NOT DEALING WITH THE ISSUE DIRECTLY, IT’S HURTING THE WRONG PEOPLE.”
DE SOUZA SAYS IT’S IRONIC THAT HE COULD LOSE HIS JOB IF HE CONTINUES TO WORK. “I’M ENCOURAGED TO BE VERY VOCAL IF I’M SUPPORTIVE. WE’RE ENCOURAGED TO MARCH AND PICKET AND WRITE LETTERS AND ALL THAT, BUT IF I’M NOT SUPPORTIVE, THEN I’M ENCOURAGED TO NOT VOCALIZE THAT.”
DE SOUZA SAYS WHILE HE RESPECTS THE UNION’S RIGHT TO STRIKE, HE SAYS NOT ALL OF HIS CO-WORKERS RESPECT HIS RIGHT TO NOT.

CFAX Radio November 5
Library workers union responds to dissent

THE UNION REPRESENTING MORE THAN TWO HUNDRED LIBRARY WORKERS DENIES IT HAS THREATENED ONE OF THOSE MEMBERS FOR REFUSING TO PICKET.
RICHARD DESOUZA HAS BEEN CROSSING THE PICKET LINES WHICH HAVE BEEN APPEARING OFF-AND-ON AT GREATER VICTORIA LIBRARIES FOR SEVERAL WEEKS.
DESOUZA TOLD C-FAX 1070 NEWS STRIKE ACTION IS “COUNTERPRODUCTIVE” AND IS “HURTING THE WRONG PEOPLE.” — LIBRARY USERS HAVE SEEN BRANCHES CLOSED DOWN FOR DAYS ON END, INTERNET ACCESS PULLED, AND LITERACY PROGRAMS SCALED BACK.
CUPE LOCAL 410 PRESIDENT ED SEEDHOUSE SAYS REFUSING TO PICKET ONLY COSTS DESOUZA HIS STRIKE PAY — BUT SEEDHOUSE SAYS CROSSING THE LINE IS A MORE SERIOUS MATTER.
“WE HAVE NOT YET MADE ANY FINAL DECISION ON [A COURSE OF ACTION],” SAYS SEEDHOUSE. “UNDER THE CUPE CONSTITUTION, CROSSING PICKET LINES IS AN OFFENCE WHICH CAN BE SANCTIONED UP TO AND INCLUDING DISMISSAL FROM THE UNION.
“THERE WOULD HAVE TO BE A PROPER TRIAL UNDER THE CUPE CONSTITUTION WITH EVIDENCE GIVEN BY BOTH SIDES,” SAYS SEEDHOUSE, “SHOULD IT EVENTUALLY COME TO THAT, THE CONSEQUENCE OF BEING DISMISSED FROM CUPE WOULD BE LOSS OF HIS EMPLOYMENT.”
ONLY CUPE WORKERS ARE ALLOWED TO HOLD NON-MANAGEMENT POSITIONS IN THE GREATER VICTORIA PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM.
SEEDHOUSE SAYS ASIDE FROM DESOUZA, THE MEMBERS ARE SOLIDLY BEHIND THEIR UNION LEADERSHIP.
“OF COURSE THERE ARE ALWAYS QUESTIONS, AS THERE SHOULD BE AT ANY OF OUR MEETINGS,” SEEDHOUSE SAYS. “THE ACTIONS THAT THE EXECUTIVE DECIDE ON SHOULD BE PUT TO QUESTION BY THE MEMBERS — AND THE MEMBERS HAVE THE RIGHT TO INSTRUCT THE EXECUTIVE TO ACT DIFFERENTLY.
“AT THIS POINT, THE MEMBERS APPEAR TO BE STRONGLY BEHIND US.”
SEEDHOUSE SAYS WE CAN EXPECT MORE JOB ACTION IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS, BUT WON’T SAY IF THAT MEANS ANOTHER SHUTDOWN OF THE NINE LOCAL G.V.P.L. BRANCHES.

CFAX Radio November 6
Library job action continues

SEVERAL BRANCHES OF THE GREATER VICTORIA PUBLIC LIBRARY ARE CLOSED TODAY, DUE TO ROTATING STRIKE ACTION BY CUPE.
LOCAL 410 PRESIDENT ED SEEDHOUSE SAYS THE CLOSURES TODAY ARE AT NELLY MCCLUNG; EMILY CARR; OAK BAY; AND SAANICH CENTENNIAL BRANCHES.
SEEDHOUSE SAYS THERE WILL BE NO JOB ACTION TOMORROW, BUT THERE WILL BE SEVERAL BRANCHES CLOSED ON THURSDAY, AND THE MAIN DOWNTOWN BRANCH WILL BE CLOSED FRIDAY.
THE UNION IS NOT PICKETING DURING THIS ROUND OF JOB ACTION.

Times-Colonist November 7
Branches shut as library staff turns up heat
Kim Westad

Library workers are stepping up their job action this week with rotating strikes to shut different branches.
Tomorrow, the Bruce Hutchison, Central Saanich, Esquimalt and Juan de Fuca branches will be closed. Central library’s doors will be shut Friday.
The Emily Carr, Nellie McClung, Oak Bay and Saanich Centennial branches were closed yesterday.
The workers, members of CUPE Local 410, have conducted a variety of job actions in the past two months, after negotiations with the employer broke down. Library employees are asking for pay equity with City of Victoria employees doing similar tasks, something they say was promised them a decade ago.
But the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association, which bargains on behalf of the municipalities that fund the Greater Victoria Public Library system and the public library, said pay equity has already been dealt with.
Library material return slots will remain open during the rotating strikes. No late fees will be charged for the days that libraries are closed.
Library workers won’t actually picket the branches during the closures. Instead, they will gather at strike headquarters from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. for study sessions on pay equity, with discussion and questions.
The union has slowly been escalating job action since taking its strike vote in September. Public computer terminals at all nine libraries are closed. Most extracurricular activities, including classes held at the library, have been cancelled and all libraries close during the lunch hour, from noon to 1 p.m. Staff are not accepting overdue fines, although those who want to pay them can do so by contacting union-exempt staff.
One staff member has reportedly crossed picket lines, saying the strike action is penalizing the public.
CUPE Local 410 spokesman Ed Seedhouse said crossing a legal picket line can be an offence against CUPE’s national constitution. Penalties for such proven behaviour can range from a fine up to dismissal from the union. That would see a person lose his or her job as the GVPL is a closed union shop.
“We’ll look at the alleged behaviour and decide what to do,” Seedhouse said.
The union has also said it will do no work on the new “express” library planned in Langford. The 2,044-square-foot branch is to be built into a new multi-use building on Goldstream Avenue. The boutique-style branch would have a limited number of books on-site because of its size, but would bring in holds from other branches for patrons.
It is slated to open in June. Seedhouse said CUPE members will not do any work on organizing the branch until they are at least back at the negotiating table. CUPE work for a new branch could include anything from ordering books to preparing them for the shelves.

Victoria News November 7
Library worker crosses picket line

Richard de Souza risks his job to make a stand
Richard de Souza loves his job so much, he’ll risk losing it.
As a library employee and member of striking CUPE Local 410, de Souza isn’t allowed to work when employees walk off the job or picket in front of Greater Victoria Public Libraries.
Yet de Souza has been crossing picket lines since job action started in early September, working his shifts despite threats of having his union membership revoked – and consequently losing his job.
“I would be compromising my own ethics by walking off the job,” de Souza said. “I love my job, but I’m willing to risk losing it if it means not compromising my values.”
When library workers walk off in the middle of his shift, de Souza stays at the library. When library workers lock the doors to his branch, de Souza still shows up and lets himself in when possible.
De Souza, a children’s services clerk at Central Library, believes job action hurts people who aren’t involved in the pay equity negotiations that have had library workers striking sporadically since September. He doesn’t disagree with the union’s push for pay raises, but feels it’s going about the fight in the wrong way.
“(Striking) is not effective,” he said. “It’s an aggressive technique. It seems to hurt the wrong people, (though) there’s no right people to hurt.”
De Souza says he’s not trying to convince anyone to join him. He remains friendly with picketers and realizes he’s taking a lonely stance by not walking off the job.
His actions have made him unpopular with many co-workers. “Some staff have turned really cold against me and that’s hard.”
Not only staff. The union has served de Souza with several written and verbal warnings that his actions are jeopardizing his membership. In one letter to de Souza, CUPE 410 president Ed Seedhouse wrote, “CUPE Local 410 expects that you will honour any future picket line in order to avoid a complaint being filed against you for violating the union’s constitution.”
De Souza says the union’s stance against him is hypocritical.
“The union is encouraging its members to be vocal, but they’re telling me to be quiet. They say, ‘you have your right to disagree, but do it quietly and just go home.’
“I feel pressured into complying with the union’s stance. My views aren’t valued. If I disagreed (with job action), it was seen as a malicious thing and I’d be hurting my fellow staff. I feel kind of bullied.”
He’s been forward, but not aggressive, about his quiet protest. Before crossing picket lines for the first time, de Souza wrote a formal letter to the union and GVPL stating his intent to continue working.
De Souza feels the union’s 15-year-old issue with pay equity, the reason for this job action, shouldn’t affect him.
“I accepted this position knowing my hours of work and knowing my pay. Now I’m being asked to break my commitment to my employer. That’s really stressful for me.”
He supports third party arbitration to settle the issue, but that’s not what his actions are about.
Seedhouse says he’s never seen a library worker refuse to comply with union policy to such a degree.
“Not to my knowledge has there ever (before) been a case of someone crossing picket lines,” Seedhouse said.
There hasn’t been any decision made on whether CUPE 410 will take action against de Souza.
“Frankly, at this point, this is way down on my list of priorities. Should he continue to act that way there would be consequences,” Seedhouse said. “The CUPE constitution has a provision in it for placing members on trial if they commit an offence against the constitution of the union. Should CUPE remove him from our membership, the consequence would be that he would lose his job.”
De Souza hopes to keep his job, but says he will stick to his ideals.
“I’m obviously already putting myself at risk,” he said, adding he’s looking into other job options in case things don’t work out. “I hope it wouldn’t come to that. Until then, I’m doing the best work I can. (Losing my membership) would limit some of my options, but I would feel that I stuck to my principles.
“And I’d still use the library.”
ecardone@saanichnews.com

CFAX Radio November 7
Frank Stanford’s comment

I HOPE THE GREATER VICTORIA PUBLIC LIBRARY IS BANKING ALL THE MONEY THAT IT IS NOT PAYING IN WAGES, WHEN CUPE STAGES ITS SOMEWHAT IRREGULAR JOB ACTION.
IT MAY BE NEEDED DOWN THE ROAD.
THIS DISPUTE IS GOING TO END UP BEING SETTLED BY AN ARBITRATOR…AND THAT LIKELY MEANS A VICTORY FOR THE UNION. ARBITRATION OFTEN DOES. THAT’S WHY THE UNION IS INSISTENT ON THAT FORM OF SETTLEMENT, AND MANAGEMENT SO FAR REFUSES.
THE ISSUE IS OVER A DECADE OLD, AND IS ONE OF INTERPRETATION. ONE WONDERS HOW IT’S BEEN ALLOWED TO DRAG THIS LONG WITHOUT BEING SETTLED. YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED THERE’S ALREADY AN ARGUMENT OVER INTERPRETATION OF ONE OF THE POINTS OF AGREEMENT IN THE CONTRACT THAT FINALLY SETTLED THIS SUMMER’S CIVIC STRIKE IN VANCOUVER. A LABOUR RELATIONS EXPERT AT UBC’S BUSINESS SCHOOL WAS QUOTED THIS WEEK, COMMENTING THERE ARE “ALWAYS” SUCH ISSUES IN A COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT. THERE ARE SO MANY DETAILS; SO MANY PAGES; SO MANY PEOPLE ON THE RESPECTIVE BARGAINING TEAMS; I CAN UNDERSTAND HOW IT HAPPENS: EVERYBODY STANDS UP, SHAKES HANDS, AND WALKS OUT OF THE ROOM WITH AT LEAST TWO, AND MAYBE A DOZEN DIFFERENT UNDERSTANDINGS OF WHAT THE OTHER GUY HAS JUST CONCEDED.
SO, SOME OUTSIDE INTERPRETATION OF WHAT THE CONTRACT ACTUALLY SAYS IS ROUTINE, BUT HAS APPARENTLY NEVER HAPPENED CONCERNING THE LIBRARY WORKERS PAY EQUITY AGREEMENT. IT’S TIME IT DID.
THIS IS FRANK STANFORD.

Times-Colonist November 9
Letter to the editor: Mediator should solve library strike

The library strike has caused many losses to faithful patrons. One of the worst results of this job action is the cancellation of all the children’s and adult programs, including all adult computer classes, public lectures and kids’ storytimes.
After an illuminating conversation with Ed Seedhouse, union president, I believe that their grievances are legitimate and that they have tried hard to resolve this issue with management. However, even though I agree with their reasons for striking, I cannot support their methods. Taking things away from the public is not going to get people on their side.
As with all public-sector strikes, our most vulnerable citizens are the hardest hit. People too poor to own computers have no Internet access. Seniors have to do without computer classes that cater to their needs. For those of us on low incomes, the only accessible computer training is those free library classes.
Because so many are being hurt by this strike, it is time for our governments to step in, even though it is not an essential service. When the dispute has deteriorated to the point where the union is taking away public services, an independent mediator should be brought into solve it once and for all.
The union may discover that leaving the public out of the equation is the best way to get their support.
Doreen Marion Gee,
Victoria.

Peninsula News Review November 9
Library action amps up
Cat George

Internet services and public programs have been cancelled, while patrons can’t check out books or pay fines, but the response to the job action at Central Saanich library has been positive, according to the library workers.
“A lot of people are saying, we should just go on strike, instead of the creative striking we’re doing right now,” said Sheila Sharp, the branch supervisor. “We have a petition up and everybody is signing it. There’s hardly anybody complaining.”
Workers at the Greater Victoria Public Library, as represented by CUPE 410, have been in a full-strike position for almost three months now and have continued to use alternate job action. The most recent is a lunchtime strike, where all workers will take lunch between 12 and 1 p.m., meaning no services will be available during that hour of the day. Internet computers are no longer available, all programs (such as classes and storytimes) have been cancelled, and staff are no longer collecting fines, although the fees will continue to accumulate. “I think people are okay with us not charging at the moment,” said Sharp, “but they may not be okay when we start charging again.”
The library workers are asking for pay equity with other municipality workers, something they say has been promised since 1996 but never delivered. No progress has been made in talks between the union and employers since the start of job action. CUPE 410 has expressed a belief that the pay equity issue is also a gender issue, as a much higher percentage of library workers are women than in other workforces. In fact, all of the staff at the Central Saanich branch are women.

Saanich News November 14
Letter to the editor: Union is not the bad guy

Re: Whether to cross the line (News, Nov. 9)
I wonder what Richard de Souza was thinking when he took the job at the library and became a member of CUPE Local 410?
The ethics and values he claims to possess must be pinpoint specific, for he clearly deceived the union when he agreed to its constitution. Either that or he was deluding himself.
Now he crosses the picket line and defends it by insisting the union is “going about the fight in the wrong way.” One would presume, then, that he knows the right way.
If so, perhaps he could enlighten the union so that it can amend the error of its ways.
The fundamental reason for the existence of unions is to provide a more equitable means of dealing with employers, very few of whom have ever led the way to social justice.
In the library workers’ case, means equal pay for equal work.
Also, his suggestion that striking is an aggressive technique is naïve in the extreme.
Strikes are, more often than not, inherently noble acts requiring great courage.
This is particularly true in this dispute.
When the library shuts down, the employer loses nothing – indeed, it makes money – while the workers, with bills to pay, lose much needed income.
If there’s any aggression here, it’s on the part of the library board, which towers above the union like a schoolyard bully.
Bill Gallaher
Victoria

Victoria News November 14
Library dispute heats up with grievance

CUPE Local 410, the union representing the region’s library workers, has filed a grievance against its employer, the Greater Victoria Public Library.
The grievance claims the GVPL failed to compare library positions to equivalent positions at the City of Victoria for pay equity, as agreed to in a 1992 letter of understanding.
The grievance asks that affected employees receive retroactive wage and benefits pay to April 1993.
The move comes after an on-air interview with CBC Radio’s On the Island, when Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association chairman Ted Daly suggested a grievance be filed.
In addition, the union is filing a human rights complaint, claiming GVPL discriminates against library workers based on sex. Their argument is that library workers are mostly women and aren’t paid as much as male city workers in comparable positions.

Monday Magazine November 14
Letter to the editor: Check this out

Re: “Friends absent from library,” Nov. 1-7
I was down at the main library the other day and asked one of the workers how it was going. The most salient feature of the reply was that while most of the mayors are prepared to meet with them, mayor Lowe is refusing to do so. Apparently he says he’ll talk to them on the picket lines and nowhere else. So what does that say?
It’s clear the library folk have every right to a raise, and their getting shafted is unconscionable. So why is Lowe so adamant about refusing to meet with them? What does he stand to lose? Also, the media are totally ignoring the entire issue—with the exception of Monday (as usual).
Unless some way can be found to exert pressure on the city—possibly by embarrassing the hell out of it—this whole thing is going to fizzle out. Letters to city hall and the like aren’t noisy enough to put a fire under the relevant butts.
Nadhia Sutara, Victoria

Times-Colonist November 16
Oak Bay balks at 8% library increase

Oak Bay is balking at an almost eight per cent increase in the amount it pays for library services.
The Greater Victoria Public Library’s proposed operating budget for next year calls for a 7.8 per cent hike in the amount its 10 member municipalities pay.
If it’s approved, municipal contributions would make up $11.2 million of the proposed $13.5-million 2008 budget.
Council voted unanimously to ask the library board what services would have to be cut or reduced to keep the increase to three per cent.
“We sit in this room in the spring and jump up and down and fight to keep our municipal increase down to inflation,” said Oak Bay Coun. John Herbert. “Yet they come to us with a budget increase of 7.8 per cent.”
Coun. Frank Carson said municipalities should be presented with alternatives, including what a three per cent increase would mean. “Let’s see the options and then let’s make up our minds,” Carson said.
The increase consists of a 3.2 per cent core budget increase, 1.3 per cent for strategic-plan initiatives and a 3.2 per cent increase for the new Saanich Centennial branch.
Coun. Nils Jensen said council had the option of saying no to the new branch. “Once we agree to it, we can’t be disappointed because it costs us money. That’s reality.”
The proposed increase is up from the 6.6 per cent the library board projected earlier this year, reflecting wage increases negotiated with other CUPE workers at the various municipalities. It could rise further, depending on what happens with the labour dispute with unionized library system employees.
CUPE Local 410, which represents library employees, is in the midst of job action that has included shutting down branches for a day. The employees are seeking pay equity with City of Victoria workers, something they say they were promised a decade ago.
The employer says pay equity is already in place.

Times-Colonist November 20
Langford rebuffs library workers

Pleas to jump-start stalled negotiations between striking library workers and their employer fell on deaf ears in Langford council chambers last night.
Acting mayor Denise Blackwell refused to hear from CUPE Local 410 president Ed Seedhouse when he asked to address councillors during the public participation portion of the meeting. About 20 striking library workers crammed into Langford council chambers.
“You’re in negotiations,” said Blackwell. “You need to talk to the chairman of the library board.”
But Seedhouse argued that was exactly the problem — no negotiations are happening. “Keep trying,” said Blackwell.
Library employees are asking the Greater Victoria Public Library system for pay equity with City of Victoria employees doing similar tasks. But the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association, which bargains on behalf of the municipalities that fund GVPL, said pay equity has already been dealt with.
Workers have conducted rotating strikes and initiated job action such as refusing to accept overdue book fines since early October.
Outside the meeting, Seedhouse called the rebuff frustrating.
He said Esquimalt and Oak Bay councils had both listened to him and Victoria council had allowed him to ask questions. “I was going to ask the council to intervene to get the GVRLA to talk to us, to negotiate. That’s all we’re asking for,” he said. “We can’t negotiate if the employer will never change its position.”

Saanich News November 21
Letter to the editor: Crossing picket lines, betraying library workers

I am writing in response to the story (“Whether to cross the line,” Saanich News, Nov. 7) concerning Richard de Souza’s decision to ignore his responsibilities as an employee of the Greater Victoria Public Library and as a member of CUPE Local 410.
Every employee of GVPL is made aware that the library is a “union shop” upon being hired. Following his decision to continue working during job action, he was notified by the executive of CUPE Local 410 that his actions ran contrary to the constitution and that he could be disciplined by the union. He neglected to note that he was also informed by the library’s Human Resources department that “The library respects the right of union members to engage in legal strike action” and that “if your membership in the union was revoked; this would also have the effect of terminating your employment with the library.”
How then can he state that he feels he is breaking “(his) commitment to (his) employer?”
Ninety per cent of Mr. de Souza’s colleagues voted in favour of strike action to support the battle for pay equity. The 10 per cent who voted against the strike are certainly within their rights to refuse to join other employees on the picket line or at rallies. Many of them are actively engaged in conversation with the union: their views are respected. The union asks only that these employees abide by the constitution and not engage in strike breaking. The union works democratically as does our government. I may not have voted for the Conservative government federally but I do not believe that this gives me the right to refuse to pay the GST.
I agree that job actions do negatively affect our patrons. It is unfortunate that this is the only method we have of bringing our employer back to the negotiating table. I, too, love my job. I doubt that anyone would dispute that library employees are devoted to bringing the best service possible to our patrons but we find ourselves between a rock and a hard place.
Mr. de Souza has been heard to say that he is content with the wage he was offered upon beginning work and that our 15-year battle for pay equity does not affect him. I am disappointed that his ethics do not extend to supporting a fair wage and treatment for others in the library — particularly the women with whom he works. It is worth saying that he may not have been so happy with his wages and benefits had the union not negotiated on his – and all workers’ behalf – in the past.
Olivia Anderson
Saanich

Oak Bay News November 21
Council disappointed by rising library costs; Oak Bay not impressed with ballooning budget
Vivian Moreau

A proposed 7.8 per cent increase in library funding has some Oak Bay councillors alarmed.
Greater Victoria Public Library’s board has given Oak Bay a heads up that the municipality will have to contribute $795,743 to the regional library’s 2008 proposed budget of $11,239,305.
Oak Bay councillor John Herbert thinks 7.8 per cent — $57,835 more than the municipality’s 2007 contribution — is way high.
“I use the library every week,” Herbert said, “but this is too much over the rate of inflation.”
The regional library system has nine branches that serve 10 communities from Oak Bay to Metchosin and north to Central Saanich. Oak Bay’s financial contribution to the library system is based on its population and the number of representatives it has on the 21-member board. Oak Bay resident Russ Lazaruk represents taxpayers on the board while Coun. Pam Copley is there on behalf of the municipality.
The budget increase was needed to fund the new Saanich Centennial branch, Copley explained to councillors at their Nov. 12 meeting. Other items adding to the extra cost include a full-time teen librarian position and consultant fees for two planning reviews, as well as a small boost for salary increases that might result when the current labour dispute is resolved.
But the news didn’t sit well with some councillors who feel the library always has its hand out for budget increases, yet never provides a plan B for budget boosts.
“Never has the library come to this municipality with options,” said Coun. Frank Carson. “What would a 2.5 (per cent) increase mean? Would it mean a half-day closed on Sunday?”
Coun. Nils Jensen served on the library board for three years before Copley took over. Jensen also thought questions should be asked about providing options to a 7.8 per cent increase.
“What reduction in service would be needed to meet 3 or 3.5 per cent,” he said. “What cuts would need to be made? Presumably if we ask specific questions we’ll get an answer just as specific.”
Council directed Copley to query the board about other financial funding options before the library hosts its budget meeting in late November. The Greater Victoria Regional Library board expects to finalize its 2008 budget by February.

Goldstream News Gazette November 23
Langford council snubs library union
Rick Stiebel

Councils around Greater Victoria staying distant from ongoing librarian strike
Langford council joined the ranks of local municipalities refusing to take a stand on getting the two sides in the library dispute back to the bargaining table.
Library workers at nine Greater Victoria Public Library branches — including the Juan de Fuca branch which serves the West Shore — are frustrated by the lack of negotiations, said CUPE local 410 president Ed Seedhouse.
Langford acting mayor Denise Blackwell told Seedhouse it would be inappropriate to comment in the midst of negotiations when he attempted to address the issue during public participation at Monday’s council meeting.
Seedhouse expressed frustration that “we can’t talk to anyone to get negotiations going” before filing out of council chambers, accompanied by about 30 library workers.
“That is our difficulty in the situation,” Seedhouse told the News Gazette the next day.
“All councils are denying they have anything to do with (the negotiations).”
Although Seedhouse was able to speak briefly at recent Oak Bay and Esquimalt council meetings and allowed to ask questions at a Victoria council meeting, all attempts at getting GVPL member councils who share in the cost of providing library services involved in getting negotiations underway again have met with no response.
Library workers have shut down service at all branches for three days in October, staged rotating walkouts at branches and cancelled programs at all branches since being in a legal position to strike Sept. 7.
There has been no negotiations since the end of August, and no more are scheduled at this time.
Seedhouse said the main stumbling block continues to be the union’s demand for pay equity with City of Victoria workers performing similar tasks, something he says was agreed to in principle in 2000.
Although the union has agreed to binding arbitration to settle the issue, the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association, which handles negotiations for the GVPL, has refused to budge, Seedhouse said.
“We’re not going away or giving in,” Seedhouse said, adding they are determined to continue the battle until next November, if necessary, to draw more attention during the 2008 municipal elections. Although Seedhouse said support from the public has been great, he indicated the union is planning more job action, but refused to be more specific.
GVLRA negotiator Ron Brunsden is away until next week and unavailable for comment.
North Saanich Mayor Ted Daly, chair of the GVLRA board, could not be reached for comment before the News Gazette’s deadline.
CUPE local 410 has about 250 workers providing services at nine branches serving about 300,000 people at 10 municipalities in the Greater Victoria area.

CFAX Radio November 27

GREATER VICTORIA LIBRARY WORKERS HAVE BEEN PICKETING AGAIN TODAY (TUESDAY) AND LIBRARY BRANCHES ARE CLOSED.
UNION MEMBERS PICKETED THE DOWNTOWN BRANCH IN ANTICIPATION OF A LIBRARY BOARD MEETING AT THAT LOCATION.
BUT CUPE LOCAL 410 PRESIDENT ED SEEDHOUSE SAYS THEY LATER LEARNED THAT THE MEETING WAS MOVED TO THE GREATER VICTORIA LABOUR RELATIONS ASSOCIATION OFFICE ON BURNSIDE.
A FEW PICKETERS WERE MOVED TO THE BURNSIDE LOCATION, BUT THEY LOST THE CHANCE TO ASK BOARD MEMBERS NOT TO CROSS THE PICKET LINE ON THE WAY IN TO THE MEETING.
WAGE PARITY IS ONE OF THE KEY ISSUES IN THIS ONGOING LABOUR DISPUTE.

Victoria News November 28
Letter to the editor: Library workers demands reasonable

I am writing to express my support for the municipal library workers in their current dispute and also my dismay at the lack of consideration they have encountered.
Every library worker, from branch head to clerk, is paid less than for comparable positions within city government.
The library workers have clearly made every effort to minimize inconvenience to the general public. Their claims have been brushed off and their legitimate complaints have been rudely rebuffed.
I don’t see any leadership coming from any of the municipalities affected.
The complex structure of the library board and its relationship to the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association is functioning to deflect responsibility for genuine negotiation.
I call on all the elected public officials in the Greater Victoria area to exercise leadership. Ensure that the GVLRA responds positively to the library workers’ call for pay equity and that the GVLRA bargains in good faith.
There is no legitimate reason to make the library workers intensify or prolong their job action.
The library workers’ case seems eminently reasonable and compelling. They have shown exceptional restraint in pressing their case. I urge members of the public to contact your municipal politicians to instruct the GLVRA to negotiate a settlement that respects the library workers’ expertise and commitment to service. Remind them that we are taxpayers and voters.
Deborah Yaffe
Victoria

Times-Colonist November 30
Library management, union at odds over Food for Fines
Kim Westad

Library patrons with hefty overdue fines can still have them reduced to under $10 if they bring a non-perishable food item into their local branches.
But even a program designed to help a good cause has unionized Greater Victoria Public Library workers and library management at odds, with both sides saying they’ll operate the “Food for Fines” program.
CUPE Local 410 launched the program earlier this week. That raised the ire of library management, which says the union doesn’t have the authority to waive fines.
“To [waive fines] is to interfere with the contract between the public and the library and contradictory to library board policy,” library CEO Barry Holmes wrote in an e-mail to the union, adding staff that do so could be disciplined, and a grievance launched against the union to recover lost revenue.
Members of CUPE Local 410 have been in a legal strike position since September, and have taken job action ranging from full-day closures to suspension of programs and Internet service at the system’s nine sites. The “Food for Fines” campaign collecting donations for local food banks was launched this week as the latest step in the job action.
After CUPE spokesman Ed Seedhouse waived a fine yesterday morning, he was asked to meet with Holmes. Seedhouse said he was told that he was “insubordinate” and that action may be taken against him. Holmes would not comment, saying it was a personnel matter.
Management then said the “Food for Fines” program would continue, but by managers only. “It is protecting the principle that it is within management’s authority to waive the fines, but still supports a good community program and lessens the confusion there may be for the public,” Holmes said.
If only managers were to collect the donations, readers would have to take them to the central Broughton Street branch or call a special number posted in the branches.
But the union says it will continue waiving fines for patrons at all branches. Seedhouse said management collecting fines could be seen as doing the work of employees, which is not allowed under the labour code.
If overdue fees exceed $10, certain library privileges are suspended, such as online holds and renewals.
The main issue in the labour dispute is pay equity, which the union says management promised but failed to deliver. Management disagrees, however, saying pay equity was dealt with two years ago. The disagreement hinges on a contract clause that says library positions should be compared with “equivalent” positions in the City of Victoria for pay-equity purposes. The employer says the clause refers only to positions such as a librarian in the city archives, while the union interprets the term more broadly to refer to other jobs that require comparable levels of training or education.
No talks are planned between management and CUPE.

Library Journal November 30
Victoria, BC, Library strike continues, with row over “food for fines”

The three-month labor dispute between the Greater Victoria Library System (GVLS), BC, and 250 library workers represented by CUPE 410 has heated up. Earlier this week, library staffers walked off the job for two days, shutting down all nine branches in the system; it was at least the sixth such action. On November 29, they launched a “Food for Fines” strike action that has management accusing the union of crossing the legal line.
For the past six weeks, circulation staff have not accepted payment from customers for overdue fines. Now the union has switched gears by launching the “Food for Fines” program, waiving fines under $10 if patrons donate food for the local food bank. Library managers, however, say such a policy is unauthorized, and librarians who follow it risk disciplinary action. According to the Times-Colonist, library CEO Barry Holmes sent an email to the union that reads, “To [waive fines] is to interfere with the contract between the public and the library and contradictory to library board policy.” The library could file a grievance against the union to recover lost revenue, according to the article.
CUPE 410 leader Ed Seedhouse, who works in the systems department of the central branch, waived a library fee on November 29 and was called in to meet with Holmes, who reprimanded him. “Forgiving fines is not my normal job, but as union president, I felt I had to put my neck on the chopping block first,” Seedhouse told Library Journal. “Their own forgiveness policy is exactly the same as ours, except they want management staff to do the forgiving. We say that’s illegal strike-breaking.”
LJ was unable to get a comment from Holmes before press time, as he postponed a scheduled interview. However, he told the Times-Colonist that allowing only managers to accept food for fines protects “the principle that it is within management’s authority to waive the fines, but still supports a good community program and lessens the confusion there may be for the public.” The GVLS web site advises patrons who want to pay overdue fines to speak with a manager at the central library.
Victoria library workers have staged a series of strike actions since early September, after eight months of negotiations with library management stalled. At issue is pay equity for library employees with other municipal employees, according to union officials, who claim that library management has failed to “deliver on a promise” made in 1996 to achieve pay parity. Library representatives say the pay equity issue was resolved in 2005 with a 9.5 percent wage increase over the last decade. There are no talks scheduled between the parties. A nearly three-month-long library strike in nearby Vancouver was settled in October.

Saanich News December 1
Mixing politics and charity
Jim Zeeben

A plan to help stock the region’s food banks while depleting the coffers of the public library has been called off. The union representing striking library workers initially announced the campaign earlier this week.
CUPE 410 is in an ongoing labour dispute with the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association. On Tuesday, library workers put up picket lines at all nine branches of the Greater Victoria Public Library.
The union also announced a “food for fines” campaign that called for library workers to eliminate up to $10 of a patron’s book fines in exchange for a donation of non-perishable food.
However, late Tuesday night, the union opted to suspend the campaign before it began, citing “threats by management to take disciplinary action against anyone forgiving a patron’s fines,” said the president of CUPE Local 410, Ed Seedhouse. “We do not think this threat is proper since anyone doing this is doing it at the instruction of the union and should not be subject to individual discipline.”
The action was designed to deprive the employer from a source of income, a common tactic for striking workers, Seedhouse said.
“There’s no doubt our strike does inconvenience people and cause loss of revenue,” Seedhouse, adding the union is trying to force a return to the negotiating table.
Money collected from fines goes into the library system’s general revenue. It’s a significant source of income, generating $586,000 of the library’s $12-million budget, says library board chair Christopher Graham.
“I think who the staff are providing donations to (makes for) a pretty laudable cause,” Graham said. “But I have some concerns because (the action is comparable to) if municipal staff stopped collecting property taxes.”
A meeting of the library board planned for Tuesday was moved at the last minute, from the Central Library branch to the Greater Victoria Labour Relations office.
The venue was changed so board members wouldn’t be put in a position of having to cross the striking workers’ picket line.
CUPE 410 represents 250 regional library workers, who started strike action Sept. 7. At issue is how much library workers are paid in relation to the wages earned by other municipal workers.

Oak Bay News December 5
Library, union need true spirit

At a time of year when people are wont to think about the spirit of giving, the public is being used as a bargaining ploy in the Greater Victoria Public Library labour dispute.
The problem is, neither side comes off as the good guy in this situation. The union initially called its “food for fines” campaign a stepping up of its ongoing strike action. The move fizzled when management declared staff – ultimately the union – was not legally authorized to change library policy on forgiving fines. Two days later the GVPL announced it would be running a “Food for Fines” campaign until Dec. 31 and that management staff would be assuming all responsibility for the waving of the fines. The food is being stockpiled as it has been the past two years when the GVPL accepted non-perishable food at its branches, then turned it over to local food banks.
Food for Fines, admittedly not the brainchild of the GVPL, was the result of a bit of scrambling by the library to ensure it didn’t risk alienating those who would donate to such causes, or cause confusion for people who have traditionally dropped off food at the library.
GVPL CEO Barry Holmes said the move to allow library users owing more than $10 to reduce their fines for a month will likely not cost the library a great deal of money. While the GVPL wouldn’t have initiated such a program of forgiving fines, he said it was important that the library stand up for policy in this situation.
So, what should have been an altruistic move by GVPL or CUPE is strictly related to gaining the upper hand in bargaining and not done in the spirit of the season at all.
It’s a sign of the deterioration of negotiations when the public has to be subjected to moves like this, let alone the inconvenience of job action.

Monday Magazine January 2, 2008
The week: strike resolution long overdue

CUPE local 410 president Ed Seedhouse is still waiting for local politicians to turn in their holiday homework assignments.
In mid-December the union representing 250 striking Victoria library workers sent a chart to municipal representatives illustrating discrepancies between how City of Victoria workers and their library counterparts are compensated for performing similar duties. The differences range from $0.33 an hour for entry-level page positions to an $8.83 difference for branch heads. The union asked politicians to highlight the jobs where they believe equity has been achieved.
“At this point I have heard of no responses,” Seedhouse said in a December 27 conversation with Monday.
Striking workers met on Thursday, December 20, to discuss possible strategies after more than 100 days had passed with no offer from the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association or its chief negotiator Ron Brunsdon to return to the bargaining table.
“As far as I’m concerned the [Greater Victoria Public Library board] is being mislead by the negotiators,” said Seedhouse.
The union rep says pay equity was agreed to in a 1991-1993 collective agreement between CUPE 410 and the GVLRA and has been included in every collective agreement since, but never actually implemented.
Library workers have been in a legal strike position since September 7 and since that time have launched a variety of actions. Lately they’ve been waiving overdue fines of less than $10 in return for a donation to the food bank. Seedhouse says this will continue until the first week in January when strikers will unveil a new plan to raise the issue’s profile.

Times-Colonist January 9
Letter to the editor: Library needed

I am disturbed that there has been nothing in the newspaper recently about the library strike. This service is important, and I think more effort should be made to get both sides back to discussion, and arbitration if discussions break down. The public pays taxes for this service and should be protected against it being withheld.
Joan Moody
Victoria

Times-Colonist January 16
Library workers off job to protest suspension
Jeff Bell

Unionized workers from the Greater Victoria Public Library were off the job yesterday to protest the suspension of a colleague, said union spokesman Ed Seedhouse.
The job action closed all nine branches for the day.
“This is in reaction to action by management, it wasn’t planned in advance,” said Seedhouse, a member of Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 410. “One of our members has been in our opinion, illegally, but certainly unfairly, suspended for a day for taking part in lawful strike action.”
Seedhouse said the suspension is linked to a union/management dispute late last year over who would operate the Food for Fines program — an initiative launched by the union to allow for reductions in overdue fines in exchange for a food bank donation. Library management argued the union did not have the authority to waive fines, but said the program was a good idea and would be continued by managers.
CUPE Local 410 members have been in a legal strike position since September, and have been staging job actions that include suspension of programs, shutting down Internet access and closing the library system for a day at a time. The main issue in the labour dispute revolves around pay equity.
Library chief executive officer Barry Holmes said yesterday’s job action came unexpectedly. There are currently no negotiations going on between the two sides, he said.

CFAX Radio January 16
Library closure is in support of suspended worker

THERE’S MORE TO TODAY’S CLOSURE OF GREATER VICTORIA LIBRARY BRANCHES THAN JUST A REGULARLY SCHEDULED JOB ACTION.
CUPE LOCAL 410 PRESIDENT ED SEEDHOUSE SAYS HIS MEMBERS WALKED OUT TODAY BECAUSE MANAGEMENT SUSPENDED AN EMPLOYEE FOR ONE DAY, FOR TAKING PART IN WHAT THE UNION BELIEVES WAS LEGAL STRIKE ACTION.
SEEDHOUSE SAYS, “AS A RESULT, ON THE PRINCIPLE THAT A WRONG TO ONE IS A WRONG TO ALL, WE ARE OUT FOR THE DAY IN SOLIDARITY WITH THAT MEMBER.”
THE UNION IS ALSO LAYING A COMPLAINT BEFORE THE LABOUR RELATIONS BOARD OF B-C.
LIBRARIES COULD BE OPEN AGAIN BY TOMORROW.
THE UNION HAS ENGAGED IN ON-AND-OFF JOB ACTION SINCE LAST SEPTEMBER, IN A DISPUTE OVER WAGE PARITY WITH VICTORIA CIVIC WORKERS.
- RYAN PRICE

CFAX Radio January 18
Library strike-bound again today

LIBRARIES ARE CLOSED IN GREATER VICTORIA AGAIN TODAY, BECAUSE OF JOB ACTION BY CUPE.
LOCAL 410 PRESIDENT ED SEEDHOUSE SAYS THE UNION IS WALKING OUT IN SOLIDARITY WITH ONE MEMBER WHO HAS BEEN GIVEN A TWO DAY SUSPENSION THAT CUPE BELIEVES IS UNJUST.
CUPE IS IN A LEGAL STRIKE POSITION.

Times-Colonist January 18
Library staff walks out again after suspense extended

Unionized Greater Victoria Public Library workers withdrew their services again yesterday for the second time this week.
In both walkouts, members of Local 410 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees were protesting against the suspension of a colleague for taking part in the union’s Food for Fines program. The program, which sees overdue fines reduced or waived in exchange for charitable food donations, was created by the union late last year.
“The position of the library has always been consistent,” said chief executive officer Barry Holmes. “We believe that the union does not have the authority to be waiving fines. The authority rests with management, and for them to be waiving what we consider ‘accounts receivable’ on our records is beyond a simple withdrawal of service.
“It has a significant impact in terms of dollars.”
Holmes said management stepped in to briefly run a similar initiative in December, but never recognized what the union was doing.
The union resumed its Food for Fines campaign this month, which led to the suspension of a worker on Wednesday. That prompted a day-long union walkout, with CUPE 410 countering that the Food for Fines program is a legal strike activity.
Yesterday’s walkout came about when the worker was suspended for another two days.
The union has been in a legal strike position since September. The main issue in the labour dispute revolves around pay equity.

The Tyee January 19
Victoria library strike escalates
Tom Sanborn

A long-simmering labour dispute escalated this week, shutting down all branches of the Greater Victoria Library system yesterday for the second time in three days.
On Wednesday and again Friday, unionized library workers walked out, closing every library in the region.
Previously, in carrying on a strike that began in September, CUPE 410 members had been conducting “work to rule” tactics, including regular noon-hour closures of library branches and shut downs of patron Internet access through branch computer stations.
The walk-outs this week were responses to management suspending a union worker on two occasions for carrying on a “food for fines” campaign. The campaign, initiated by the union but endorsed by library management last year, allows patrons to make a donation to the local food bank instead of paying fines on overdue books.
A CUPE 410 press release yesterday said three other workers who have received verbal warnings for waiving fines for food are also expected to face suspensions.
‘Legitimate strike action’: union
There is some dispute about the status of the food for fines program, with a notice on the GVPL’s website indicating it was a management initiative that has now been cancelled, while a union representative says it is an ongoing strike activity legitimately pursued by union members.
“Food for fines is a legitimate strike action,” said CUPE 410 president Ed Seedhouse. “Disciplining our members for such activity violates the collective agreement between the parties and the Labour Relations Code. By walking out today, we are simply doing what is necessary to protect our members.”
In a letter to GVPL chief executive Barry Holmes, the union asked the body to stop disciplining members of CUPE 410 for participating in food for fines. The union cites a recent arbitrator’s decision in a case involving Farwest Handydart Services that ruled a similar action — drivers refusing to collect fares for rides — was lawful strike activity.
$600,000 loss risked: management
Holmes told The Tyee that library management had its own, separate food for fines program that only allowed management personnel to handle the process. He said the union initiative, which has continued and escalated since the GVPL cancelled its own fine forgiveness program on Dec. 31, was illegal.
“They don’t have the right to take fines off the books,” he said. “That is a management prerogative. We have a legal opinion that disagrees with their argument about the Handydart arbitration. If this program were to continue all year, the library could face losses of up to $600,000.”
In an interesting twist, the GVPL’s website on Jan. 16 announced the day-long closure of its nine branches, and advised patrons that no late fees would be charged for books not returned that day.
Central branch circulation supervisor Helen Hughes is suspended for today and Monday, with the employer escalating disciplinary measures against CUPE 410 members.
Pay equity fight
The central issue prolonging the labour dispute, CUPE 410 president Ed Seedhouse told The Tyee, is a long overdue promise by the library to address pay equity issues for library workers.
“We’ve had an agreement on pay equity since 1992, but we still don’t have what was promised us. Our jobs were supposed to be compared to jobs at Victoria City Hall and this was done, in theory, in a comparability study in 2000. But the wage differences remain.”
Offering an example, Seedhouse explained: “At the end of December 2006, the last day our old collective agreement was in force, a page at the library made $9.87 an hour, while at city hall similar work earned $19.44 an hour. The library paid a circulation clerk $17.58 an hour, while similar work at city hall paid $21.47.
“What is at stake here,” Seedhouse added, “is basic respect for librarians. The employer has refused to negotiate. We need some action on pay equity and on the library’s excessive use of poorly paid auxiliary workers.”
The Greater Victoria Public Library had 83 full-time staff and 248 part-time staff, including auxiliaries in 2006. In contrast, the Vancouver Public Library has 404 full-time and 404 part-time staff.
Negotiations stalled
GVPL CEO Holmes declined to answer any questions about union claims that there had been no substantial negotiations since the beginning of the strike in September, referring these queries to Ron Blunsdon of the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association.
Several calls from The Tyee to the GVLRA offices requesting comment on this story from Mr. Blunsdon were not returned.
Seedhouse said the failure to negotiate was due, at least in part, to the “hall of mirrors” structure that governs library service in the Greater Victoria region.
“The library board has no real power,” he told The Tyee. “They get money from 10 municipalities to operate the library system, but they don’t negotiate with us. That’s supposed to be done by the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association.”
Among the signs carried by picketers Wednesday were some calling on the library board to “grow a heart.”

Victoria News January 23
Library workers stage walkout

Library workers walked out for two days last week to protest the suspension of a library worker.
The Greater Victoria Public Library handed Central branch circulation supervisor Helen Hughes a suspension for waiving fines in exchange for food bank donations. The library workers have been in a legal strike position since September, though they’ve only staged sporadic walkouts. The union representing the workers says waiving food for fines is a legal strike activity. CUPE 410 represents 250 regional library workers. At issue is how much library workers are paid in relation to the wages earned by other municipal workers.

Monday Magazine January 23
Disconnected

Library union strike action sparks overload at downtown public access computer sites
It’s early Monday morning and the small computer room at Victoria Cool Aid Society’s Downtown Community Activity Centre is already at capacity with clients checking out apartment listings, scrolling through updates in the Facebook universe and visiting favourite websites.
In the adjacent hallway, several patrons sip complimentary coffee from styrofoam cups while waiting for their 30-minute window on one of the centre’s five aging computers.
“I used to keep track of how many people use the computers, but the sheet kept getting ripped out and fed through the printer,” says activity centre coordinator Donna McKenna.
The regular backlog of computer users at the centre is one upshot of the ongoing labour dispute between the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association and the members of CUPE Local 410 that has left 56 public access computers at the central Victoria branch and more than 100 others at libraries around the area sitting idle since October, 2007.
Union members withdrew services back then in the hope their actions would force their employers back to the bargaining table to negotiate a long-overdue pay equity agreement. The perpetual lineup to log on at the limited number of free computer terminals in the city demonstrates the degree that internet access has permeated every aspect of modern life—regardless of where a person fits on the income scale.
“It sounds obvious, but this is a digital society we’re in now,” says Gareth Shearman, president of Victoria Telecommunity Network/Victoria Free-Net, the not-for-profit society that provides low-cost internet services and web-hosting for many community organizations in the area—and for local libraries. “People who can’t get access to the internet are at a distinct disadvantage.”
The shutdown of Greater Victoria Public Library computers has meant many people who can’t afford their own computers, or can’t foot the bill charged by local internet cafes have had to queue at the scarce community access points scattered around the city, or forego not only leisure time in cyberspace, but time spent researching things important to their lives like how to access social programs or upgrading their educations.
CUPE 410 president Ed Seedhouse says his union knew computer access was a popular library service and hoped its curtailment would result in an outcry from regular users that would help bring the GVLRA and its chief negotiator Ron Brunsdon back to the bargaining table.
“It was one of our early actions we thought would have an effect,” says Seedhouse. “We’d like nothing better than to restore that service, but we find ourselves stuck with an employer that simply refuses to return to the table.”
In 2006 the GVPL recorded 406,359 public access sessions on library computers around the region.
“I can’t give you any specific examples, but the general comment is that people really miss it,” says library CEO Barry Holmes. “It’s the area that we’ve probably heard the most comment.”
Despite the avowed sympathy from both sides of the dispute, don’t expect the switch to be thrown any time soon. The relationship between the union and its employers has grown more acrimonious in recent days, with workers filing an unfair labour practices complaint with the province’s Labour Relations Board and GVPL board chair Christopher Graham threatening to lock out workers.
Poverty activist Rose Henry, while sympathetic to position of the striking library workers, says the union’s action has had a direct impact on down-on-their-luck residents who have long used the library not only as a place to read and troll the internet, but also a place to escape inclement weather on the streets.
“This is a strike against people who live on the streets,” she says. “They use [the computers] to catch up with family and friends, they’re checking out social services. They used to be able to work on finding a place to live.
“The library is a main resource we send people to. This is the group of people that can least afford to be disadvantaged.”
For the last year Henry has been working with homelessnation.org, an online community that links those who live on society’s margins across the country. At last count, homelessnation.org was 2,914 members strong.
The website allows members to establish e-mail accounts, search city-specific resource databases and, with the organization’s video camera, make video profiles of themselves, their associates and the life they lead. Recently, homelessnation.org introduced a podcast feature to the site.
But the library strike has put a cramp on the web community’s local chapter and Henry is now allotted just 90 minutes every Wednesday afternoon at the downtown activity centre to tutor new users on how to navigate the site and edit and post their videos.
“Homelessnation.org is a rare service that tries to empower the homeless,” says Henry. “We have to share our stories—tell the truth and speak from our hearts. We are part of the solutions.”
Henry says computer skills have become crucial in the last few years as more government business is conducted online. That may streamline some processes, but it also creates barriers for society’s marginalized population.
“It can be dehumanizing,” says Henry. “You go to a government office and the receptionist will tell you to use the computer terminal. But what do you do if you’ve never used a computer before?” she says.
Local author Troy Wilson knows the benefits access to public computers can bring.
Wilson was freshly graduated from Camosun College’s applied communication program in 2000 and saddled with a large student debt when he turned his attention to writing children’s books.
With no computer of his own, Wilson used one of the available machines at the downtown library.
“I used the library computers out of necessity—out of abject poverty really,” says Wilson. “I typed everything there. I saved my drafts, I communicated with my editors. I guess I could have bought my own computer, but my need for food and rent money trumped that,” he says.
Wilson’s first book, Perfect Man was picked up by Orca Books in 2001 and has since received critical praise. Wilson felt so indebted to the services provided by the library that he dedicated his second kids book, Frosty is a Stupid Name, to the location it was created. “The GVPL helped me achieve a dream that I had for a long time,” he says.
Today, things are looking up for the writer. “Now I’m poor and I have a computer.”
Back at Cool Aid’s Downtown Community Activity Centre, McKenna says getting the library system back on line wouldn’t necessarily solve all of her overcrowding problems. The 32 associated housing units upstairs from the street-level centre means a regular stream of residents wanting access to the machines. Plus, since the library requires a library card—and obtaining that card requires identification—not all of her clients would benefit from the strike’s end. McKenna is quick to point out that not all the centre’s patrons are poor or homeless, with a cross section of ESL students, recent immigrants and travellers also stopping by to log on.
But more important than that, McKenna simply wishes she had more computers. She doesn’t want a mountain of surplus Tandys to show up on her doorstep, but says cash donations are always welcome. The few thousand dollars a year the centre receives from the federal government’s Department of Industry Community Access program covers the cost of the internet connection and occasional troubleshooting, but little else, while McKenna says she’d like to open the centre a few nights a week beyond its afternoon closing time.
This sentiment is echoed by Victoria Free-Net’s Shearman who says the federal government should not be the only public body supporting public internet access.
“Municipalities need to look at this as a valuable public service,” he says. “From a community economic development standpoint, the more access people have at an affordable rate, the more competitive we will be as a whole.”
Instead, he says the federal government funds access on a year-to-year, piecemeal bases.
“There needs to be a strategic, long term approach to getting people connected,” he says.

Saanich News January 25
Library workers forced to collect book fines

Library workers don’t want to be forced into a full-blown strike, says the president of Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 410.
CUPE members are in a legal strike position.
Since September, library workers have withdrawn some services. They refused to collect fines since November, but were ordered by the Labour Relations Board to resume the collection this week.
Library workers want wage parity with Victoria City Hall staff.
But the likelihood of an all out strike is slim, said Ed Seedhouse, CUPE 410 president.
“The library workers in Vancouver were out for over three months and got very little of that back,” Seedhouse said. “They lost one-third of a year’s pay and got almost none of it back from the employer.”
The majority of library workers are dedicated to their jobs and do not look favourably upon strikes, he said.
Library workers did hold a one-hour strike in 1992, but the current disagreement is the first extended strike action the union has taken in its 60-year history.
“We don’t think the people of Victoria should have to suffer a loss of library services over the dispute,” Seedhouse said.
Barry Homes, Greater Victoria Public Library CEO, said a walk out would be disruptive. With only eight exempt staff in the region’s nine branches, such action would close library service in Victoria.
A strike would cause many complications, he said, such as how to deal with returned books in library drop boxes.

Victoria News January 31
Letter to the editor: Give library workers their due

The present Greater Victoria Public Library dispute derives from the fact that the library employees want wages parity with other inside city workers – something that was promised 15 years ago, but never materialized in subsequent negotiations.
Since the majority of library employees are women and typically not militant, their present low-key job action fails to garner enough public attention, so the employer is able to virtually ignore them. Moreover, the library workers are trying to negotiate with a horribly fragmented body.
Apparently the library has a board of 21 citizens and politicians from 10 municipalities that does not negotiate with the employees. That is done by a shadowy agency known as the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association, or GVLRA, whose meetings are held in secret. However, some municipalities are not represented by them at all, and still others, who are not even part of the library, sit on the board of the GVLRA.
So who deals with whom? Exactly. No one bites the bullet. Everyone can hide and the library workers can bleed.
Libraries are surely the most valuable public institutions in existence throughout the civilized world. They are open to all without discrimination, are essential for the proper functioning of modern society and ostensibly “free” to all, which is to say that their functioning revenue is derived from city and municipal taxes.
Anyway, from the public perspective it’s simple: the library workers’ wages should be brought into line with other municipal inside workers as promised and full library services restored. As a taxpaying member of the public and a big user of the library, I need to know that the employer is properly negotiating with the library workers’ union and not fudging. We need them to be negotiating visibly.
John Nesling
Saanich

Times-Colonist February 1, 2008
Library food-for-fines program struck down
Kim Westad

The Labour Relations Board has put an end to the controversial “food for fines” waiver program at Greater Victoria Public Library branches.
As of today, library staff cannot waive any fines. All payments must be made at the Central Library branch on Broughton Street, the only branch with a non-union person on site to take the fines. Management has the discretion to waive fines in extenuating circumstances, said GVPL chair Chris Graham.
Fines over $10 can result in certain library privileges being cut off, such as putting on holds.
Union members at the nine GVPL branch libraries had been waiving fines over $10 since Nov. 27, as long as the person gave a food donation. The food then went to a local food bank.
It was part of escalating job action by employees, who have been in a legal strike position since Sept. 4. Since, they have had rotating strikes, with 10 full days of strike action. The computer terminals have also been shut down, as well as numerous programs using rented library space.
But management went to the Labour Relations Board after the union began waiving fines, saying members of CUPE 410 did not have the authority to do this.
Fines for overdue materials are a significant part of the library budget, said GVPL chairman Chris Graham. They represent between $500,000 and $600,000 a year for a library system that is constantly trying to make its budget go as far as it can.
On Jan. 11, the GVPL notified union members that they did not have the authority to waive fines, and disciplined one worker by suspending her on three days.
The union said its members were simply exercising their lawful right to refuse to work by waiving fines. Employees have been able to waive fines in the past for patrons, as long as there was some sort of extenuating circumstance, such as illness, inclement weather, an accident or death in the family.
But the board found that waiving fines was not strike-related activity that is protected by the Labour Code.
“Employees have never been at liberty to waive fines simply because a patron requests that they do so,” the labour board’s vice-chair Philip Topalian said in a written decision released this week.
“While it is possible to sympathize with the frustration of (union) members who have been unable to reach agreement on a key issue in bargaining in the 13 months since the collective agreement expired, there is no interpretation of the language of the (labour) code which would authorize employees to destroy or to give away assets which are the legal property of the employer.”
Topalian also ruled that the library had proper cause to discipline an employee for waiving fines.
However, he did not deal with the library’s bid for restitution from the union. If it wants to do that, the library can go to arbitration.
Board chair Graham said no decision has been made on that yet.
The key issue in the labour dispute is pay equity. The union says the library agreed to pay equity with City of Victoria employees a decade ago, and it’s not yet been done. The employer disputes this.
CUPE 410 spokesman Ed Seedhouse would not say if any further job action is immediately planned.
“The food for fines program has been terminated. We have no intention of pursuing illegal strike action. We took this action in good faith, on advice that it was legal.”
Seedhouse said the union wants to get back to the bargaining table.

Times-Colonist February 2
Correction

Members of CUPE 410, which represents unionized employees at the Greater Victoria Public Library, initiated a complaint with the Labour Relations Board, not management as was reported in a story on page A6 on Feb. 1.
The union asked the board to stop management from disciplining staff who were waiving overdue book fines for patrons who gave a food bank donation. Management then filed a complaint about employees waiving fines. The board dealt with both complaints at the same hearing, ruling that union staff could not waive the fines.
Library workers have been engaged in job action as part of a contract dispute.

Monday Magazine February 6
Letter to the editor: Library strikers pro-people

Re: “Disconnected,” Jan. 24-30
Regarding the impact of CUPE 410’s strike action, the withdrawal of internet services and its effects on the homeless and disenfranchised, we are pleased that Ms. Henry is sympathetic to our position but respectfully disagree that we are striking “against people that live on the street.” Greater Victoria Public Library workers feel strongly that we are part of a community solution to many social problems. We make every effort to ensure everyone can access the internet and our services as well as offering free classes to teach people how to use them.
We continue to struggle with the decision to withdraw our services but after a year without a contract and facing continued stonewalling from all political levels, we felt we had no choice. We are dismayed that blocking internet access did not result in bringing the employer back to negotiations. Shamefully, only the most recent action of forgiving fines in exchange for a food donation to local food banks has prompted a response: the suspension of an employee involved in this collective action and threat of lockout from the library board.
For those of you that don’t know, a promise was made in 1992 as a part of the collective agreement between the library and its employees that library workers would achieve pay equity, and that for this purpose their jobs would be compared with equivalent jobs at Victoria city hall. The due date was 1994, extended by agreement to 1996. More than a decade later, the promise is still overdue. Library workers are still paid much less than employees in equivalent jobs at city hall.
In every other local jurisdiction where pay equity was agreed to, the process has been completed, the funding was found and female municipal workers throughout the lower Island now receive the same rates of pay as men doing equivalent work—everywhere, that is, except at the Greater Victoria Public Library.
We hope this letter stands as a call to action. The library is funded by 10 municipalities and 2008 is an election year. Let your municipal politicians know that library service is important to you. Everyone affected by this labour dispute should speak up and tell the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association to resume negotiations. Everyone benefits when the issue of promised pay equity is addressed and full library service is restored.
Visit cupe410.ca for more information or drop into any library and talk to staff about the issues and how to help. We thank library users for their understanding and continued support.
Olivia Anderson & Susie Jones, Victoria

CFAX Radio February 14
Library workers rally as lockout looms

LIBRARY WORKERS AT THE EMILY CARR BRANCH OF THE GREATER VICTORIA PUBLIC LIBRARY USED THEIR LUNCH BREAKS TO RALLY IN SUPPORT OF PAY EQUITY.
THE UNION HAS BEEN IN A LEGAL STRIKE POSITION AS OF SEPTEMBER AND WORD OF A LOCK OUT AS OF 5 O’CLOCK SUNDAY HAS SOME LIBRARY USERS INCLUDING PAULA JOHANSON WORRIED. “THE VALUABLE SERVICE THAT I RELY ON IS REALLY NOT GOING TO BE AVAILABLE ANYMORE WHEN MY WORKERS ARE BEING LOCKED OUT.”
PRESIDENT OF THE VICTORIA DISTRICT LABOUR COUNCIL MIKE ESO WAS AT THE RALLY TO OFFER HIS SUPPORT. HE SAYS IT’S TIME FOR THE LIBRARY BOARD TO SIT DOWN AND NEGOTIATE A GOOD DEAL. “WE THINK IT’S OUTRAGEOUS THAT THE LIBRARY WOULD PROPOSE TO LOCK OUT THE WORKERS, SHUT DOWN THE LIBRARIES AND PREVENT PEOPLE FROM HAVING ACCESS TO BOOKS AND RESOURCES THEY PAID FOR.”
CUPE LOCAL 410 PRESIDENT ED SEEDHOUSE SAYS STAFF AND LIBRARY WORKERS ARE SHOWING THEIR ‘LOVE’ FOR LIBRARIES ON VALENTINES DAY.
SEEDHOUSE SAYS THE POTENTIAL FOR A LOCKOUT ISN’T HELPING THE SITUATION. “WE CAN’T FIND ANYONE THAT WILL EVEN TALK TO US. WE CAN SOLVE THE PROBLEMS IF WE TALK TO EACH OTHER BUT IT TAKES TWO SIDES TO TALK AND THEY’RE NOT TALKING”
- NIKKI EWANYSHYN

Saanich News February 14
Labour rift closesVictoria libraries

Effective at 5 p.m. Sunday, the locks are turning shut on Victoria libraries.
In the midst of ongoing labour strife, the Greater Victoria Library Board voted to indefinitely close all nine libraries until negotiations with union workers are completed, said board chairman Christopher Graham shortly after the decision was made Wednesday morning.
Concerns over revenue loss and accountability to the taxpayers spurned the action which was supported by the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association.
“(The libraries) lost over $40,000 in fines over three weeks,” Graham said of striking library staff refusing to collect fines.
Without that revenue, the board was faced with having to restrict hours of operation.
It is hard to be financially accountable to the municipalities while library staff are being paid full wages for reduced services, Graham said.
“Currently we are not operating any Internet services and all the programs have been cancelled,” he said.
“Staff are not putting in full days work but are getting full days pay since September. We thought that was financially irresponsible on our part to let that continue.”
Library staff cancelled programming and refused to collect fines against the board’s wishes as part of the strike action.
Negotiations haven’t moved forward since September, said Ed Seedhouse, CUPE 410 president, adding the library board has “stonewalled” them on discussions regarding pay equity with other city workers and “fair treatment” for part-time workers.
“They have refused to talk about it at all. That’s shameful,” he said.
“It shows the library board cares more about money than library service,” Seedhouse said upon learning of the lock-out. The action will result in “hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost services,” he added.
It is unclear how long the lock-out will last. It depends on when the two parties reach an agreement.
“We seem to be very far apart right now,” Graham said.
Library staff aren’t giving up.
“We are not going to give up and we are not going to give in,” he said.
“If that means that we are going to be on the streets (picketing) for a long time then that’s what it means,” said Seedhouse.

CFAX Radio February 15
Frank Stanford’s comment

THE LOCK-OUT OF GREATER VICTORIA LIBRARY WORKERS, WHICH BECOMES EFFECTIVE THIS WEEK-END, IS PROBABLY A NECESSITY.
THIS LABOUR DISPUTE HAS BEEN DRAGGING ON WAY TOO LONG…AND GOING NOWHERE. IT’S TIME FOR SOMEBODY TO FORCE THE ISSUE TO THE FOREFRONT…TO GET THE OTHER SIDE’S ATTENTION.
IT WILL BE A PUBLIC INCONVENIENCE NO DOUBT. THE DISTRICT LABOUR COUNCIL PRESIDENT HAS LABELLED THE LOCK-OUT “OUTRAGEOUS”…BLASTING MANAGEMENT FOR DEPRIVING TAXPAYERS OF ACCESS TO RESOURCES THAT THEY HAVE PAID FOR.
HE OBVIOUSLY FORGETS THAT TAXPAYERS HAVE BEEN DENIED ACCESS TO SOME OF THE LIBRARY’S RESOURCES FOR MONTHS, DUE TO THE UNION’S JOB ACTION. THE SYSTEM HASN’T BEEN CLOSED, ENTIRELY, OTHER THAN FOR THE ODD DAY HERE AND THERE, AND SO THE DISPUTE HAS REMAINED LARGELY UNDER THE RADAR. IT IS TRUE THAT THAT’S NOT THE REASON FOR MANAGEMENT’S DECISION THAT IT HAS FINALLY HAD ENOUGH. THAT CALL IS BASED ON ECONOMICS…THE UNION’S FLIRTATION WITH POLICY CONCERNING LATE FINES IS APPARENTLY A 500 THOUSAND DOLLAR ANNUAL COST ITEM, AND THE ORGANIZATION WON’T TOLERATE IT.
WHO KNEW? THAT THOSE TWO BITS HERE AND THERE WOULD BE THE CATALYST THAT WOULD FINALLY FORCE THESE PARTIES TO TALK TO ONE ANOTHER.
THIS IS FRANK STANFORD

February 16 Times-Colonist
Letter to the editor: Chain of command muddled

As I am the former CEO of the Greater Victoria Public Library, people seek my opinion on the current job action.
Having former colleagues on both sides of the issue, until now I have chosen not to get involved. The toughest question I’ve been asked is, ‘Who’s in charge?’
Technically, the employer is the library board. The problem is the board doesn’t ratify the collective agreement.
Although there are 21 members of the board representing all participating municipalities, the board has only one vote on the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association, the ratifying body.
Even this is complicated by the fact that two of the largest financial contributors to the library — Saanich and Langford — aren’t even members of the labour relations association.
By the time I’ve explained all this, eyes are glazing over.
The library is a regional service caught up in our convoluted system of local government. The result has been that accountability is very muddled.
The pending lockout of staff is troubling. Many library staff live paycheque to paycheque and a lockout will result in economic hardship.
In 1992, when pay equity was more fashionable, the elected officials ratified an agreement that held out hope of comparability with other municipal workers by agreeing to a study of respective wages. Now, more than a decade later, pay equity has fallen out of favour, but the issue remains.
The central question is this: Do library workers deserve to be paid less than other municipal workers for work of comparable value? I know my answer.
Sandra Anderson
Victoria

February 17 CFAX Radio
Greater Victoria Library Branches Closed

GREATER VICTORIA LIBRARIES WILL BE CLOSED INDEFINITELY AFTER LIBRARY EMPLOYEES WERE LOCKED OUT AS OF 5:01 YESTERDAY AFTERNOON.
THE MOVE IS THE LATEST IN A FIVE MONTH LABOUR DISPUTE BETWEEN LOCAL LIBRARY WORKERS AND THE GREATER VICTORIA LABOUR RELATIONS ASSOCIATION.
UNION SPOKESPERSON ED SEEDHOUSE SAYS THERE WILL BE SOME PICKET ACTION STARTING TODAY (MON). “WE’LL HAVE PICKETS UP FOR AT LEAST PART OF THE DAY, WE WANT TO GET TOGETHER WITH ALL OF OUR MEMBERS IN THE AFTERNOON.”
LIBRARY BOARD CHAIR CHRIS GRAHAM SAYS THEY COULDN’T KEEP THE NINE LIBRARY BRANCHES OPEN WHEN WAGES WERE BEING PAID FOR WORK THAT WASN’T BEING DONE. “THE UNION HAD BEEN ENGAGING IN UNLAWFUL LABOUR PRACTICES, THEY WERE ATTACKING THE ASSETS OF THE LIBRARY BY WAVING FINES UNLAWFULLY AND THE LABOUR RELATIONS BOARD FOUND THAT TO BE UNLAWFUL.”
SEEDHOUSE SAYS THE UNION HAS SHUTDOWN THE LIBRARY’S ON LINE CATALOGUE IN RESPONSE TO THE LOCKOUT.

February 18 Times-Colonist
Lockout closes capital’s libraries
Bill Cleverley

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 drop-off 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.

February 18 Globe and Mail
Library workers locked out in Victoria
Murray Langdon

For the second time in less than half a year, library workers in a major B.C. city are off the job.
Nearly 300 unionized workers have been locked out due to a dispute between Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 410 in Victoria and its employer over pay equity.
Last year, Vancouver libraries were closed for nearly three months during an acrimonious battle in which the city also struggled to find peace with its inside and outside municipal workers.
CUPE 410 president Ed Seedhouse said the pay equity issue is one that he believed the Greater Victoria Public Library Board agreed to in 1992 but has never fully implemented.
“I won’t sign a contract that doesn’t address pay equity,” said Mr. Seedhouse, a library worker. “If that means I’m starving, I’ll have to take it.”
He said a deal reached in 1992 included an agreement to bring library workers in step with work being done at Victoria City Hall. As it stands, he said, some people in the library are making half the hourly wage of their municipal counterparts.
“We understand that these things can’t be worked out in a year, but we should be able to negotiate a solution.”
Workers have been without a contract for nearly 14 months and hoped some public support would put pressure on their employer. The union has engaged in a series of tactics to bring its cry for equity to the public, including not working over the lunch hour and waiving overdue fines.
But while that garnered some public support, it raised the ire of the library system’s governing board. It issued the lockout notice midweek, closing down the nine libraries in the Capital Region yesterday at 5:01 p.m.”We have a responsibility to protect the assets of the library,” said Chris Graham, chair of the Greater Victoria Public Library Board, in a news release. “The strike activities by the union are having a severe fiscal impact and the library is losing important streams of revenue, while employees are continuing to be paid.”
Mr. Graham said the loss of more than $40,000 in uncollected fines has hurt the library system. The B.C. Labour Relations Board ruled the union’s actions were illegal, but Mr. Graham said all the board felt it could do was stop the bleeding.
“Given the continuing strike by CUPE 410 and the adverse impact on library operations, the lockout measure is, at this point, the only viable option.”
As the lockout drew near, library patrons rushed to get a supply of reading materials.
“It’s really chaotic,” said central branch employee Patricia Eaton, as many people checked out double-digit numbers of books. “It’s kind of like Boxing Day in here.”
Sharon Young, who’s worked in the library system since 1979, said the real issue is a systemic one: chronic underfunding. Statistics show nearly five million items were loaned out last year, which ranks Victoria’s as one of the most used systems in Canada. Yet, said Ms. Young, Greater Victoria libraries rank between 25th and 30th in terms of funding.
“People are deeply disturbed by the pay equity issue, but really, the issue is a long-term, systemic, negative attitude. We don’t get enough resources.”
Anne Morrey, with two bags full of books in her hands, called the situation “silly.” Ms. Morrey said she goes to the library once a week and filling the void will be tough.
The union has said it has asked the board’s bargaining agent to take the pay equity issue to binding arbitration, to no avail. Mr. Seedhouse said the membership’s resolve is strong and their local has already received pledges of financial support. But he also admitted that there are few winners in strikes, and knows the public will suffer.
“What’s hard for me is the damage it will do to the reputation of the institution.”
Leaflets will be handed out today, with full-scale picketing to start tomorrow.
Mr. Graham said he hopes the dispute will come to a quick resolution, but isn’t optimistic.
“It looks like it could be a long one. Both sides seem to be dug in.”

February 19 Times-Colonist
Letter to the editor: Ex-library chair urges action

We are distressed by the library lockout and mystified that this extreme step was taken. Management’s representative suggests negotiation but won’t discuss the core issue, pay equity.
The employees say they don’t have pay equity with equivalent jobs at the City of Victoria, promised in a 1992 signed agreement. Today, most library staff are paid 80 to 86 per cent of wages for equivalent jobs at the city. Two large groups, librarians and pages, are getting 89 per cent and 49 per cent respectively. Fifteen years have passed. Nobody has pay equity.
The employees must feel they are talking to ghosts, as the board has no power and the real owners are the municipalities. It’s a Byzantine governance structure carefully designed so responsibility and consequences rest nowhere.
The board says it declared this lockout because the employees are not collecting overdue fines. But let’s be clear: The fines are not being waived, the revenue is merely being postponed.
The implications are not just serious inconvenience to the public and catastrophic hardship imposed on library workers. The library management will save a pile of money in wages, the employees will become even more embittered, and many qualified people will quit these jobs and look for better treatment.
We’d like to see our elected municipal folks take responsibility, get the two sides to the table, and honour their signed agreement. Our library system itself is at stake here.
Neil Williams, Library board chair, 1997-1998
Valerie Ethier, Library board chair, 1999-2002

Times-Colonist February 19
Letter to the editor: Library lockout targets the poor

Our city representatives don’t want us reading books. That is what the locking out of library staff amounts to. If they wanted, they could break through all the barriers created by the Labour Relations Board arrangement and reach a settlement with the union.
When I was on the Greater Victoria Library Board 10 years ago, we approved the principle of parity in pay. Now it seems that our city representatives feel they know better. It sure makes me wonder if they’ve ever read a book.
Now we have kids suffering because there are no children’s programs and hundreds of folks without computers suffering because they cannot log on in their library. Then there’s me, with an insatiable hunger for books and very little money to buy them.
Alison Acker, Victoria

February 20 Saanich News
Library workers hit the picket line while waiting for negotiations to resume

About 300 library workers across Greater Victoria started a waiting game on Monday that could last weeks or even months, according to Oak Bay branch manager, Neil McAllister.
He and fellow workers passed out pamphlets and held up signs outside their place of work after the Greater Victoria Library Board locked the doors on all nine branches indefinitely.
“It’s going to be very tough on workers,” McAllister said. “A lot of staff are concerned about making their rent payments, making their mortgage payments.”
While locked out, workers will receive $250 a week from their union’s strike fund.
“One of the sad things is that a lot of our really low paid workers will actually earn more during the lockout.”
The library workers, represented by CUPE Local 410, have been without a contract for over a year and have been in a legal strike position since September. The Greater Victoria Library Board voted on Feb. 13 to close all libraries until negotiations with the union are complete.
The board explained the lock out by saying it is irresponsible for them to pay full wages to library workers who aren’t providing full services. As part of their ongoing job action, library workers cancelled library programming and Internet services, refused to collect fines and closed branches during the lunch hour.
“We cannot continue to operate at 75 per cent efficiencies,” said Ron Brunsdon, chief negotiator for Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association.
Strike action is costing the library board $50,000 a month, he said. “It reached a point where the employer said no more, we can’t run a viable business – where’s that money going to come from? – the only response the employer legitimately has is to lock them out.”
But library workers have taken offence to the accusation that they are working less than a full day’s work for full day’s pay.
“There was a comment about us only doing 75 per cent of our work,” said Olivia Anderson, branch manager at the Bruce Hutchison and Central Saanich library. “Do you know what? I am working even harder than I was because suddenly I have time to look at my collection. I am working just as hard if not harder than I was.”
While waiting to return to work, Anderson says she won’t be sitting around.
“I’m going to be working with the public, with politicians trying to get them back to the table. As a woman, as a library worker, pay equity is really, really important to me and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let it drop.”
At Tillicum library, Phyllis Dalton’s primary concern is for auxiliary workers at the library.
“(Many) have worked with us for years and worked full hours but have not gotten any benefits. If they have to go to the dentist, they have to pay for it out of pocket,” said Dalton, children’s librarian and chief picketer.
Until an agreement is reached, two shifts of library workers will be picketing outside Tillicum six days a week, eight hours a day.
“I don’t think that they’re just locking out CUPE employees,” said Ed Seedhouse, president of CUPE 410, at a strike action on Feb. 14 at the Emily Carr library.
“They’re locking out the people of Victoria who use this library… they think that they can just remove that service from people and just collect the money that they would otherwise be paying library workers.”
The union says it wants the matter resolved by a third party arbitrator, but Brunsdon, representing the employer, does not agree.
“I’m not, nor will my board give the ability to a third party to make a binding ruling that may adversely affect our interests.”
For now, the two parties are at a stalemate until the mediator decides to bring them back to the table for negotiations. This won’t happen until he thinks talks will be constructive, but neither party has moved significantly in their position since they met last July, said Brunsdon.

Pay Equity

The dispute over pay equity goes back to one line in the 1992 contract between the library workers and their employer:
“It’s understood that positions in the library which are equivalent to positions in the City of Victoria shall be compared for the purpose of job evaluation and pay equity.”
The seemingly simple sentence is now being interpreted differently by both sides, and “therein lies the rub,” said Ron Brunsdon, chief negotiator for the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association, the bargaining agent for the library.
The comparison, he said, is impossible, because the same jobs don’t exist in both library and city.
He argued the library board achieved pay equity by assigning all jobs within the library system a number of points, based on a formula considering such things as experience, education and responsibility. Salaries were then adjusted to the level of points to ensure more senior positions were more highly paid.
But Ed Seedhouse, said comparison between city jobs and library jobs is possible. Seedhouse was part of the committee that evaluated and assigned points to jobs in the 1990s. He said the committee took great care “to make sure that our gradings were consistent with the gradings at city hall.”
Based on the last collective agreement, Seedhouse said a payroll clerk at the library is paid $4 less than a payroll clerk at the city. On the union’s website, www.overduepromise.ca, he outlines some positions which exist at both locations and notes the salary difference between them.

Saanich News February 20
Editorial: Lock out missing voice of municipal leadership

Where is the voice of our municipal leaders?
The strike action that’s been simmering at local library branches for months hit boiling point this week. The Greater Victoria Library Board followed through on its threat to lock out workers at 5:01 p.m. Sunday. The decision has created uncertainty for both library workers and the people who rely on their services.
The essence of the disagreement has to do with the interpretation of one line in the 1992 contract between library workers and their employer. That line states that wages paid for library jobs will be based on comparisons to equivalent positions at the City of Victoria.
The union representing workers, CUPE Local 410, has done a good job of highlighting the inequity between wages paid for library staff and those paid municipal workers.
The group arguing for the employer says the union’s comparisons aren’t realistic. Making that claim on the board’s behalf is the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association. It’s reason for being is to put some distance between municipalities and their employees when it comes to labour negotiations. Same (but different) when it comes to the library system.
Part of the GVRLA’s argument is that municipalities are not the employers of library workers. We beg to differ.
The library board consists of people from the community as well as representatives from municipalities that use the library’s services.
Without taking anything away from citizens on the board, it’s the municipalities that foot the bill. At some point their elected representatives are the ones who are directly accountable to taxpayers.
Up until now, the board has been notably quiet about its position on the disagreement with the library workers’ union.
We really haven’t heard much from the board or the GVRLA. In fact, the only person who has spoken on behalf of the board has been its chair, Christopher Graham.
We think it’s time for that to change.
It’s time for individual municipalities to speak up about what’s going on. The best way to do that is for the de facto spokesperson of each municipality – the mayor – to add some clarity to what’s going on. It’s not enough for the GVRLA to make vague threats about job security and branch viability if wages rise.
We think taxpayers deserve to know exactly how much the union’s demands will cost.
We’d like to see those numbers made public and became part of what should be a public debate. Doing so would infuse discussion with the political will that seems to be lacking from the current negotiations.
It’s our view that offers the best chance of keeping this mess from dragging on.

Oak Bay News February 20
Letter to the editor: Library closure a major disruption

This is an open letter to all members of the GVLRA who have made the decision to shut down the libraries indefinitely.
As someone who uses the public libraries up to 20 hours a week tutoring Japanese exchange students, I’ve had it up to here watching this unfold.
This labour dispute between you and CUPE 410 has dragged on for almost 6 months. The libraries have been closed off and on, services disrupted, banks of computers sit idle, gathering dust.
At the entrance, the information box stands ever-hopeful, offering time lines of the dispute, petitions and postcards for frustrated patrons to sign and mail, lists of contacts, pleas for support.
Never mind that the libraries are also where huge numbers of international students (who, let’s not forget, are the only ones paying tuition for high school and who bring in excess of $10 million annually to Victoria’s economy – that’s more than the mental health budget) go to study.
What a monumental waste of time, resources and money! What a pig-headed, ego-ridden, inflexible, arrogant attitude to take – “We settled this years ago. End of story. Suck it up.”
No, I won’t. If you are so certain that this has been resolved, I hereby throw down the gauntlet: prove it. Show us the documents, the signatures, the deals, the agreements, the resolutions. Right now you are behaving like a stiff-necked patriarch, huffily refusing to “stoop” to explaining himself and his actions, assuming perhaps that we wouldn’t understand the complexities, yadda, yadda.
Reality check No. 1: you are supposed to be working for us. As representatives and leaders of our communities, you owe us the courtesy, the integrity and the openness to publicize both sides of the dispute, you owe us, through the taxes we pay, to negotiate openly until this is resolved.
You were elected based on your qualifications, one of which surely included your ability to communicate effectively, not just in favourable wind conditions when you can get a good spin out of it, but in times of conflict, by showing respect for your constituents and their concerns, as well as for the workers themselves.
In one sense this is like a marriage with children gone sour, (we, the public) being used as bargaining chips. We did not cause this conflict. We did not create or perpetuate this. We really are innocent bystanders, as children in an acrimonious divorce are, watching fearfully as the “grown-ups” decide our fate.
Reality check No. 2: we are not children, we are intelligent, well-read and frustrated to the teeth with your overbearing attitude. I can promise you this: I will not vote for you next time.
Most of my income comes from my work with the students, done at the library. You are messing with my livelihood, as well as with the workers’.
When I spoke to the staff yesterday they were rightfully incensed that they had not been informed directly of the lockout.
The president of the union got a call from the Goldstream Gazette (of all things) asking him what he thought of the Board’s decision. He said, evidently, “What decision?”
He had not been informed directly, and in a call made a few minutes ago to the library, I heard that he still has not been informed directly. Yet the libraries will be closed from Sunday.
It’s time to put your mouth where your money is. Show us the paperwork, get back to the negotiating table, keep us, your electorate at the forefront of your minds, because that’s who you’re working for.
You say, “Negotiating is not our priority.”
Wrong. That’s exactly what it should be. The libraries wouldn’t be losing money if this had been dealt with openly and cleanly years ago.
I say you’ve kept this from us because you know it hasn’t been resolved fairly. Now prove me wrong.
Solveig Nordwall
Solveig Nordwall is a bilingual tutor and teacher who has spent more than 15 years in Japan and is deeply involved in cross-cultural communication and conflict resolution.

Oak Bay News February 20
Library lockout hurts workers

I am distressed and angry at news of a lockout at the libraries of Greater Victoria. These librarians have conducted their strike with discretion and a concern for their patrons. No action they have taken has hurt any member of the reading public and they have remained courteous, helpful and professional.
I am a senior and I work with seniors as a volunteer. I know how important it is to them to have access to books when they are unable to enjoy other leisure activities because of their limitations. The blind who place reliance on talking books come quickly to mind, but so do the young who excitedly crowd the library as parents check out the books that are the next weeks source of fun and learning.
It seems to me that this lockout, which appears to be a final effort to bring this genuinely dedicated group of workers to their knees, can only harm large numbers of the public toward whom, to date these same workers have shown such consideration. Surely there is a better way! Is it so wrong to seek pay equity with others in similar fields?
Nan Walmsley, Oak Bay

February 21 Globe and Mail
Librarians at the gates
Tom Hawthorn

Every morning, a queue forms at the main entrance of the downtown branch of the Victoria Public Library. A half-dozen men, their clothes reflecting the thinness of their wallets but not the fullness of their intellects, await the opening of doors behind which can be found a cornucopia of knowledge.
The men race upstairs, where they will spend hours perusing the latest newspapers and magazines.
Yesterday, those doors stayed firmly closed.
Library workers have been locked out. So, too, have been those for whom the library is a home away from home.
The other morning, a dozen library workers could be found patrolling the entrance to the central branch on Broughton Street. They wore hoodies and knit caps, gloves and mittens, puffy fleece vests and bulky winter coats. They have been forced to hit the bricks when they would prefer to be shelving books.
This is no ordinary labour dispute. Jenny Griffin, a 39-year-old circulation clerk, spent the weekend researching pithy quotes. Where else will you find picket signs decorated with statements from the likes of Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Susan B. Anthony, Jane Goodall and Robert Reich? The lone labour leader cited was Cesar Chavez, who organized itinerant farm workers, many of them illiterate.
Among those on picket duty was Peter Thompson, 58, for whom the morning chill was a reminder of his previous working life as a fisherman. Once, he trolled for salmon. Nowadays, he fishes for answers to the questions posed by patrons who find him at the reference desk just inside the locked doors.
“If you don’t like working with people,” he said, wiping a runny nose, “you won’t like librarianship.”
He thinks of his workplace as much more than mere stacks of books. As he puts it, “The library isn’t a vending machine for factoids.”
Patrons ask for information on diseases that they otherwise hide, on relationship troubles they otherwise keep secret, on curiosities they otherwise dare not reveal. A librarian hears the confessions of strangers.
Mr. Thompson wore several layers of clothing, rubber boots and wool mittens. He was joined by Alan Schroeder, his sidekick on the reference desk, and by Mary-Ann Connaghan, supervisor of the magazine and newspaper department. The trio have a combined 70 years of experience at the library, which is an indoor oasis for those patrons without a permanent address. On the second full day of a lockout with no predictable end, the workers spoke less about their own predicament than that of their patrons.
“What are the homeless going to do? This is their living room,” Mr. Thompson said.
“What are the blind going to do? This is where they come to listen to books. What are the students going to do? This is where they come to study.”
The library also delivers books to shut-ins.
“Often, it’s the only social contact they get in a week,” Ms. Connaghan said.
Reading programs for children have also been halted.
Patrons here will tell you the library isn’t simply a book depository. For many, it is the place where they first surfed the Internet, or listened to a compact disc, or viewed a DVD. In suburban Saanich, teenaged patrons - and perhaps the occasional adult trusting of the staff’s discretion - can borrow the latest video games.
The library workers are approaching their 14th month without a contract. Local 410 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, representing nearly 300 library workers, counts 167 days since they launched strike actions in an attempt to restart negotiations.
The union is seeking pay equity for its workers, a majority of whom are women, who traditionally earn less.
An escalating series of job actions by the union - including the withdrawal of Internet services and a refusal to collect fines - led the library board to declare a lockout at 5:01 p.m. on Sunday.
Before the due date, patrons cleared library shelves, some leaving with as many as 60 titles.
“It looked like a closing-out sale,” Mr. Schroeder said.
In announcing the lockout, the chairman of the library board said the move was necessary “to protect the assets of the library.”
Go on down to the picket line at one of the nine branches and you can meet your neighbourhood library workers. What a fine bunch of assets they are.
“I’ve never been ashamed to say I’m a librarian,” Mr. Thompson said.
That’s a statement not many of us - and certainly no newspaper reporter - can make.
Special to The Globe and Mail

February 22 Oak Bay News
Letters to the editor (3) - Duct tape and string?

Re: Library locking the doors (News, Feb. 15)
In locking out library workers and tossing them into the street, Christopher Graham said without overdue fines the Greater Victoria Public Library board would have to “restrict hours of operation.”
In other words, if everyone returned their books on time the library board would reduce opening hours. How’s that for a thank you?
Graham talks about financial accountability. But it sounds like he’s running the library on duct tape and string – oh, and overdue fines!
Mike Sainsbury, Victoria
•••

Re: Library locking the doors (News, Feb. 15)
Capital Region residents should be outraged at the actions of Central Saanich Coun. Chris Graham, chairman of the Greater Victoria Public Library Board, and fellow board members in taking the provocative step of closing all nine branches of the Victoria library system and locking out their employees.
For nearly six months this dispute has dragged on. The library board has refused to address the key issue of pay equity.
Given the fact that nearly 100 library staff work at an entry wage rate of $9.48 per hour, the demand for pay equity seems reasonable, if not overdue.
Perhaps Graham and the other local municipal representatives believe it is acceptable to shut down library services, deny the public access to services they have paid for and lock out low paid library workers.
I don’t think that many citizens agree with that approach.
I know that the more than 20,000 workers who are affiliated to the Victoria Labour Council believe the library board is on the wrong track with its lockout plans.
And on behalf of Victoria Labour Council members I can also assure those municipal councillors/library board members that their actions in initiating this lockout will be remembered in the November elections.
Michael Eso
President, Victoria Labour Council

•••
“The library workers’ wages should be brought into line with other municipal inside workers,” wrote a News reader recently.
I’m all for equity, but why is it that nobody says it’s unequal that municipal workers across the country get 21 per cent higher salaries than other workers? Is it equitable for us taxpayers to pay fat privileges to municipal workers whose employers are not subject to the market, as private companies are?
Furthermore, I’m not convinced by the pay-equity principle, or at least by the way it is now measured.
Equity should be defined in terms of equal satisfaction, not only equal pay. If a library worker prefers his job even if he gets paid less than, say, a municipal social worker, because he doesn’t like the more stressful social working environment, why should he pretend to have the pleasant job and also the higher pay?
Now, how then can we take into account job satisfaction, to make sure everyone is equitably treated?
The best way seems to be: let the offer and demand serve equity. Workers who accepted a position knowing their hours of work and pay, are assumed to be receiving a just reward, otherwise they are free to opt for a better paid job, particularly when the unemployment rate in Victoria is historically low.
In other terms, if library employers can’t find candidates to fill their job offers, this is a sure sign that library workers are underpaid, but if candidates are in larger number than the available positions, then library workers are treated equitably.
Claire Page, Victoria

February 26 Times Colonist
Letters to the editor (3)

The good news? It’s Freedom to Read Week.
The bad news? The public libraries are all closed.
The library board could put their labour dispute before an arbitrator but are refusing. In the words of their negotiator, Ron Brunsdon, doing so “may adversely affect our interests.” In other words, the library board would probably lose.
He claims that the libraries had to be locked out as union workers were operating at 75 per cent efficiency, a claim that library workers refute. In any case, the real reason for the lockout is that the board is mounting a siege against their union employees. The aim is to force them back to work, on the board’s terms, due to financial distress. This is a cunning move since many library pages and auxiliary clerks already live below the poverty line.
Enough of such strong-arm tactics already! The library board has a responsibility to reopen our libraries and come back to the bargaining table.
Richard Brimmell, Victoria

Re: “Lockout is right tactic for library,” letter, Feb 23.
The writer proposes absurd criteria for determining pay equity. She thinks job “satisfaction” ought to be part of the equation, thus satisfying jobs should pay less and onerous jobs should pay more. Therefore street-sweepers ought to earn more than doctors, who can take home gobs of “satisfaction” after a day of saving lives in the ER.
Our satisfaction is our own personal business. Rents, mortgages and grocery bills, however, are decided in the merciless marketplace, where a dollar is a dollar and nothing else will do. The library workers’ issue is about dollars promised and about promises broken by their employer. There is no satisfaction in taking home broken promises.
Marty Hykin, Victoria

Re: “Lockout is right tactic at library,” letter, Feb. 23.
The writer seems to think that the job satisfaction that librarians get from their work compensates for being underpaid. If library workers are happy at what they do, it is because they are well-trained and dedicated to their task. In my years of dealing with them, I have found them to be unfailingly courteous and helpful. They perform an essential role in creating an aware, literate public, and should not be paid less than a municipal social worker.
Sandra Levy, Victoria

February 27 Peninsula News Review
Letter to the editor: Library lock out

I am appalled at the treatment of the Victoria library workers. I hope Central Saanich is collectively ashamed of the actions and words of their councillor Chris Graham, the chair of the library board.
We seem to be in the laughably unique position as having the only library board in Canada who actually advocates against their libraries, rather than for. Chris’ radio interview last Thursday was misleading. He spun the tale that the library board was in a “trap”, and that it was up to the GVLRA and the workers to come back to the table.
What he failed to mention is that he is a sitting member of the GVLRA, and that the library board actually instructs the GVLRA in their negotiations. So not only does the board not honour a promise to workers that is now almost 16 years old, but their chairman cowardly passes the buck and then takes the least honourable way of dealing with it — by locking out the employees — when he, more than anyone, has the power to influence both panels to resolve the situation, and it’s clear that the union wants to negotiate.
I hope that in the future, Chris is dealt with in the same manner, and that his political career is also locked out.

February 27 Oak Bay News
Letter to the editor: Pay equity affordable

Re: Lockout missing voice of local leadership, Opinion, Feb. 20
Your headline is a perfect summary of this frustrating situation for library users. Municipal politicians do not want to take responsibility for the lockout of both library workers and local residents. This is an election year and their shameful actions will be remembered.
Your editorial makes the following statement: “We think taxpayers deserve to know exactly how much the union’s demands will cost.” It turns out the cost is negligible even using numbers from the GVLRA, the bargaining agent for the library loard. Ron Brunsdon, GVLRA chief negotiator, has stated the union demands would cost between $1.2 and $1.8 million.
Let’s take his high-end estimate for our calculation. The total population served by the Greater Victoria Public Library is 297,000, or roughly 100,000 households. Thus, the maximum total cost per household to settle this long-standing promise is $18 per year or less than half the cost of a hardcover book.
The library board and their GVLRA agent have locked the doors of our library to save us $18 per year. The board’s actions are a disgrace.

February 27 Oak Bay News
Letter to the editor: Library lockout a ‘political farce’

Kudos to the News for weighing in on the library dispute (Lock out missing voice of local leadership, Opinion, Feb. 20). It seems obvious that at the heart of this issue is a dysfunctional governance model that obscures accountability, facilitates buck passing and shields politicians from public pressure. The result is a contract that hasn’t been settled in 14 months and unsavoury attempts to weasel out of promises made to library workers more than 14 years ago by refusing to discuss the pay equity issue.
There are 10 municipalities that make up GVPL and they provide the lion’s share of the funding for the Library. Municipal politicians, along with municipally appointed citizen representatives, make up the Library’s Board of Management. But the Library Board doesn’t handle labour negotiations. They hand that over to a professional negotiator whose company is the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association or GVLRA. Who’s on GVLRA’s board? Elected politicians, including many local mayors.
The mayors have said they can’t do anything because the issue rests with the Library Board and Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association (GVLRA). But wait a minute! The mayors are ON the GVLRA! And the GVLRA refuses to negotiate anything to do with pay equity or return to the bargaining table if the pay equity issue is a topic of discussion.
This political farce might be amusing if so many people were not getting hurt. The public does not deserve to be locked out of their valued library branches. The library workers do not deserve to be locked out of their places of work and deprived of their incomes. The behavior of local politicians in this dispute has been nothing short of reprehensible. They are behaving as if they’ve bought something new and now don’t want to pay for that sofa they bought years ago on a deferred payment plan! We ‘ittle people’ couldn’t get away with this and neither can the politicians.
Let your local politicians know you want them to use their influence to settle this dispute. Ask them a question: If they are so sure pay equity has been dealt with, why not agree to independent third-party arbitration as the union has done? Let’s hope they may be embarrassed into behaving more ethically. This is an election year, after all!

February 27 Oak Bay News
Letter to the editor: Strike action puts end to library service

Re: Lockout missing voice of local leadership, Opinion, Feb. 20
You state, “The decision has created uncertainty for both library workers and the people who rely on their services.” I would suggest that we all rely on libraries. I came to Victoria in October 2007 and wished to use the Internet for research only to find the service was not provided due to strike action. I travelled for three months before returning only to find there had been no resolution to the “mess” as you appropriately refer to it.
In my travels I have used libraries all over the world. I have always felt welcomed, informed and humbled by these places where ideas and entertainment remain free for all. While browsing at one branch in New Zealand, my bride and I were offered cookies and tea. As an institution, the library has no equivalent as a leveller of society.
We all need libraries as surely as we need freedom of expression and thought. The people who provide us with these opportunities deserve our respect and a salary commensurate with the important place libraries have in our towns and cities.

February 27 Monday Magazine
5 Letters to the editor: All about the library lockout

Re: “Checking Out,” Feb. 21-27
When is an agreement an agreement? Now retired, I was the union chief negotiator in the 1990s for CUPE members employed by Victoria municipalities, the CRD and the library when women’s drive for pay equity reached a high point. The provincial government had already committed itself to bringing in pay equity for workers represented by the BCGEU. The issue was also playing out across the country.
The City of Victoria, a central player at the GVLRA, was the first in 1992 to agree with its CUPE workers to implement pay equity. The District of Saanich, not a member of the GVLRA, had agreed with its CUPE workers to implement pay equity. The other members of the GVLRA—Esquimalt, Oak Bay, CRD, Sidney and North Saanich—followed suit. It was agreed this would be a joint process of union and management working together in each jurisdiction. It was anticipated that the process and funding would take several years to complete.
The GVLRA insisted that a private sector consultant be employed to assist the parties in bringing in a gender-neutral job evaluation plan that could sustain a human rights challenge. Besides achieving pay equity, the employers also wanted new job evaluation plans capable of rating all union jobs and for use into the future for new and changing jobs. The union locals agreed but stipulated a condition they would hold to—that pay equity was not about taking away money from jobs historically staffed by men to achieve pay equity for women in jobs they historically staffed.
The pay equity issue for library workers had a different twist, being primarily a workforce of women. The GVLRA agreed as part of the job evaluation process that the parties would look to positions within the City of Victoria to meet the commitment of pay equity. Therefore, using the job evaluation factors of education, experience, responsibility, working conditions, etc., library jobs would be compared to City of Victoria jobs. The library’s joint union management committee completed its comparison work years ago. The committee also calculated the wage gap.
The municipalities completed their pay equity work and provided implementation funding over several years. Overall this work was precedent-setting, meaning that management and union rolled up their sleeves and successfully worked together for years in what was not an easy task of developing new job evaluation plans and rating all jobs. There were no differences to arbitrate. Library workers have been extremely patient waiting for their employer to fully honour their pay equity agreement.
One can dance around who’s on first, what’s on second and pass responsibility around, but there is an agreement that—in principle—everyone understood when it was signed. It is time to stop the dance and honour the agreement that library workers were promised pay equity with the City of Victoria.
Jim Lamb, Victoria

The library workers lost my support when they withdrew children’s programs and internet access to pressure the library board to settle their dispute. Using children and the poor as pawns to achieve their own ends was despicable. In my book, such action represented a withdrawal of core services which means the workers effectively went on strike. Better they had initiated some form of “work to rule” to draw attention to their issues and gain public support.
John Amon, Victoria

I do support people’s right to strike and pay equity, and I know from a past job how it feels to be paid $3 an hour less than the guy next to me doing the same job for the same store starting almost at the same time. But let’s not cry over spilt milk—or, more to the point, cry over a damn good wage.
So the poor systems administrator at the library only makes $28.76 an hour. Wow, life’s tough—based on a 40-hour work week, that’s only $1,150. Sob, sob, how can anyone live on $28.76 an hour? And the poor library accounting clerk only gets $19.83 an hour (which is more than the private sector). Boo hoo, that’s only $793.20 a week. Gimme a break!
Andre Mollon, Langford

I totally agree with library workers’ right to strike and bargain for what they believe is deserved. And while I was supporting the library workers before, now I’m not too impressed, considering the lowest starting wage for library workers is more than double what the minimum wage is for the average working Joe.
My main concern, though, is the library workers’ act of extortion: since the talks and strikes began, they have shut down all computers and access to them. There are many people (usually lower income) who rely on computers as a means of communication, as well as students who use them for research and writing papers. The only thing this continued extortion is going to do is cause them to lose support.
Bruce Williamson, Victoria

As someone who uses the public libraries up to 20 hours a week tutoring Japanese exchange students, I’ve had it up to here watching this unfold.
This labour dispute has dragged on for months. The libraries have been closed off and on, services disrupted and banks of computers have sat idle, gathering dust. Never mind that the libraries are also where huge numbers of international students go to study. (Who, let’s not forget, are the only ones paying tuition for high school and who bring in excess of $10 million annually to Victoria’s economy, more than the mental health budget.)
What a monumental waste of time, resources and money. What a pig-headed, ego-ridden, inflexible, arrogant attitude to take—“We settled this years ago. End of story. Suck it up.”
No, I won’t. If you are so certain that this has been resolved, I hereby throw down the gauntlet: prove it. Show us the documents, the signatures, the deals, the agreements, the resolutions. Right now you are behaving like a stiff-necked patriarch, huffily refusing to “stoop” to explaining himself and his actions, assuming perhaps that we wouldn’t understand the complexities, yadda, yadda.
As representatives and leaders of our communities, you owe us the courtesy, the integrity and the openness to publicize both sides of the dispute; you owe us, through the taxes we pay, to negotiate openly until this is resolved. It’s time to put your mouth where your money is. Show us the paperwork, get back to the negotiating table and keep us—your electorate—at the forefront of your minds, because that’s who you’re working for.
You say “Negotiating is not our priority.” Wrong: that’s exactly what it should be. The libraries wouldn’t be losing money if this had been dealt with openly and cleanly years ago. I say you’ve kept this from us because you know it hasn’t been resolved fairly. Now prove me wrong.
Solveig Nordwall, Victoria

February 28 Times-Colonist
As library lockout drags on, employer’s side says it will research wages elsewhere
Carolyn Heiman

The cone of silence around the increasingly bitter labour dispute that has shut the region’s libraries was lifted Thursday when the employer’s negotiator said it will look at library salaries in other parts of B.C. to see if it should be offering the locked-out Victoria library employees more money.
But Ted Daly, chairman of the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association, estimated that a comparison of salaries in Vancouver, the Island’s regional library system, Burnaby and Richmond would take several weeks.
“In looking at that, we will see if there is some room to move. If so, we will get back to the mediator and ask to get back to the table.”
Workers at nine library branches were locked out on Feb. 17 when the GVLRA said the workers were only performing 75 per cent of the work.
The major stumbling block in the negotiations is the interpretation of a clause from a 1992 memorandum of agreement between the two sides stating that “positions in the library which are equivalent to positions in the city of Victoria shall be compared for the purposes of job evaluation and pay equity.”
Daly said the GVLRA “remains firm that we have met the memorandum of agreement around pay equity.”
The union sees it otherwise.
Daly said comparing the salaries at other libraries will determine “if in fact adjustments can and should be made.”
Vancouver librarians were on strike for 88 days in 2007 in a dispute that rings similar to Victoria in that it centred on wage parity issues. The Vancouver librarians wanted their mostly female library employees to be paid the same as the city’s mostly male inside workers. While the larger issue was never resolved under the new contract, the two sides agreed to a deal that hiked wages for the library’s most senior librarians and set up a committee to review the pay equity issues. That committee is to sit until 2009.
Meanwhile Victoria-Hillside MLA Rob Fleming called Thursday for the labour dispute to be sent to binding arbitration.
The New Democrat MLA worries the dispute is turning ugly and “it could drag on for months.
“My concern is that it is now affecting people who use the library including seniors. University student were deprived of the libraries during spring break.”
“Binding arbitration, while acknowledging a breakdown in process, is looking like the best option to end this stalemate and re-open our libraries. It has been used to settle deadlocks in police and fire department negotiations in the past and is appropriate in this case as well.”
The two sides have been without a contract for more than a year and only met briefly in the last week.
The GLRA bargains on behalf of the municipalities that fund the Greater Victoria Public Library system.
Prior to the lockout, the union engaged in escalating job action including rotating strikes. Computer terminals linked to the Internet were shut down and some programs using rented library space were cancelled.
Things got really heated when workers started waiving library fines, something management successfully argued they didn’t have the right to do. Fines for overdue materials represent between $500,000 and $600,000 of the library budget.
CUPE 410 spokesman Ed Seedhouse could not be reached for comment on the GVLRA plan to compare library salaries in other jurisdictions to ones in the city. Earlier, he said the union has asked the Labour Relations Board for arbitration.
Andrea Brimmell, vice-president of CUPE Local 410, said the library-to-library wage comparison is “not what we want … but we see it as an opportunity to get back to negotiations.”
Comparing libraries to libraries will just perpetuate the wage gap, said Brimmell.

February 29 Victoria News

Letters to the editor

Labour group’s tactics insulting

The decision to lockout library staff is a draconian, confrontational stance by the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association and attempting to disguise this tactic as being in the public interest is an insult to library patrons.
The issue of pay equity should be restricted to the agreement reached in 1992 rather than comparing wages that library workers make in other parts of the country.
In a recent letter to a local newspaper, two former library board members wrote “management will save a pile of money in wages” during this lockout.
Of course, as soon as enough money has been saved, serious bargaining will begin. The cost is financial hardship and plummeting morale for library workers, while library patrons are without access to services for several months.
The statement that library workers are “only doing 75 per cent of their jobs” because they are not collecting late fees and the computer terminals are not in use is not credible.
Anyone who frequents public libraries know that they are much more than late-fee collecting and computer terminal services. They are gems in a community - making books, periodicals, CDs and DVDs available to everyone, no mater his or her socioeconomic status.
During the last while I have been impressed by the professionalism shown by all levels of library staff who have continued to perform their roles during a stressful time. They are deserving of public support and to be treated respecfully by negotiators for the GVLRA.
JoEllen Morrison, Victoria

Who’s responsible for the lockout?

It is strange to find that nobody on the Greater Victoria Library Board or the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association officially want to take responsibility for locking out our libraries.
You call Christopher Graham and his colleagues on both boards, and you either get a person saying he or she has nothing to do with the lockout, or you get an answering machine.
I walk the streets and hand out information. In one day about 50 people took my handouts or stopped to discuss the lockout. All say that it is wrong to lock out the libraries.
I use the libraries several times a week. Librarians and library workers are always very helpful.
We want our libraries back.
Inger Kronseth, Victoria

Profit before people? No way

“If library employers can’t find candidates to fill their job offers, this is a sure sign that library workers are underpaid, but if candidates are in larger number than the available positions, then library workers are treated equitably,” wrote News reader Claire Page on Feb. 22.
Her reasoning is flawed.
People want to live in Victoria and that’s partly why the unemployment rate is low. It doesn’t mean the market is offering well-paid jobs. Those trying to make ends meet while working for minimum wage prove that.
Don’t resent unions for representing their members and negotiating for fairer wages and benefits.
We’re protected from employers who seek to put profit above treating employees fairly. I’ve no doubt employers could replace workers who quit because they’re unsatisfied with wages. I’d bet the employer would lower the wages for new employees.
Profit before people? That’s not fair.
Cathrine Jansen
Victoria

February 29 Times-Colonist
Letter to the editor: Union is to blame in library dispute

Re: “Ex-library chairs urge action,” Feb. 19.
The library’s former board chairpersons have harsh words for library management, but the library union carries it share of responsibility for this mess.
The union booked off the mediator in September, ending negotiations, yet continues to accuse management of refusing to bargain.
The union withdrew programming to children and seniors and shut down Internet service to Victoria’s most vulnerable citizens.
The union has refused to collect fines and work on plans for the library’s next new branch in Langford.
Union workers refused to do a significant part of their work, yet continued to get full pay. It is a mystery to me why management allowed its employees to do these things for five months without locking them out sooner.
The union claims it wants pay equity, yet management says it long ago collaborated on a job-equity comparison and paid out to workers on pay equity.
Chris McCormick, Victoria

March 1, 2008 Times-Colonist
Sliver of light in library lockout could takes weeks to shine
Jack Knox

Here’s my best family-friendly joke: A guy goes up to the front desk at the library, bellows “I’D LIKE A BIG MAC, SMALL FRIES, MEDIUM COKE!”
“But this is a library,” the woman behind the desk replies.
“Sorry,” the guy says, then whispers “I’d like a Big Mac, small fries. . .”
That one always gets a laugh, if only from me, whenever I tell it at my local library.
No laughs at the nine branches of the Greater Victoria Public Library these days. A steady stream of wellwishers’ Timbits and muffins can’t blind union members to the reality of being two weeks on the picket line with no end in sight.
If a lockout seems an awfully blunt instrument to use in resolving a dispute between a well-meaning public body and such an inoffensive group of individuals, well, they’re into it now, and no one seems sure how to get out.
The union members, the great majority of them women, want pay equity with City of Victoria workers, something they say they were promised in 1992. Hey, we’ve already lived up to that agreement, replies the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association, which does the negotiating for the library system. That’s the essence of the disagreement.
This isn’t like a private-sector labour dispute, though, where market forces come into play, both sides trying to bleed each other to the point where one screams uncle. It’s not even like a public-sector spat involving cops, hospitals, schools or the ferries, where you know the government will eventually step in if essential services are disrupted. Nobody ever died from a lack of a library.
As last year’s 88-day Vancouver library strike showed, organized labour’s traditional nuclear weapon — a full-scale work stoppage — offers little to the union, which figures the lockout is saving the Greater Victoria library system $20,000 a day in unpaid wages.
That’s one reason CUPE ran the equivalent of a guerrilla campaign for several months, damming a few of the library system’s revenue streams — room rentals, fines — or occasionally closing individual branches for a day at a time, without costing members too much in lost pay. We can’t go on this way forever, the GVLRA eventually said, and locked out the workers Feb. 17.
The union, out of bullets, figures it will take public pressure on the politicians to jumpstart talks, but is frustrated by a governance model that makes it hard to figure out whom to target. The library system is overseen by a board largely made up of elected representatives of the 10 municipalities in which it operates. But the bargaining is done by the GVLRA, whose members include many, though not all, of the same municipalities. In fact, the GVLRA board is chaired by North Saanich Mayor Ted Daly (whose municipality is served by a different library system altogether), yet has no representation from Saanich, which has four Greater Victoria library branches, but has chosen not to belong to the GVLRA.
As for the individual municipal councils in the library system, their direct involvement is generally limited to budget time.
It’s like high school grad: Just write the cheque, dad. Dad sometimes suspects his money is going to pay for somebody else’s kid; this year we have already heard Oak Bay and Esquimalt councils grumbling about library-budget increases fuelled in part by the opening of the new branch next to Saanich’s Pearkes arena.
When the GVLRA and CUPE do eventually settle, it will be up to the library board to squeeze the money for the settlement out of those grumpy municipalities.
Got all that?
There is a sliver of light. Daly says the GVLRA recognizes it will take more money to settle the dispute, and that it is willing to do a comparison with library pay elsewhere in B.C., a process that could take a couple of weeks.
That’s not really what the workers are looking for, but CUPE local president Ed Seedhouse says the union knows it must be flexible, and anything that gets talks going is good. And both sides sound truly dismayed by the shutdown of the libraries.
“No one is happy about this,” says Daly. “We hate this,” says Seedhouse.
Glad to hear it.
jknox@tc.canwest.com

March 5 Saanich News
Letter to the editor: Councillors powerless in library dispute

As with most councillors I suspect, the ongoing library dispute has provided me with a steady, often heavy, stream of emails and telephone calls. Virtually all of them ask: “Why don’t I do something about it?.”
I empathize with these entreaties. The library system is an integral part of many citizens’ lives. Beyond that, it is an important instrument for social equity. Libraries and their staff provide many facilities and services for the less advantaged in our region. It is specially unfortunate when these opportunities are removed from citizens who need them most.
I wish I could do something, but I can’t. As a Saanich councillor, I am at least twice removed from bargaining central in this dispute. To begin with, the library is a regional system shared amongst a number of municipalities. As such, it has its own board responsible for governing the system.
Saanich does have one politician (Coun.Wayne Hunter) on this board and several citizen representatives but they haven’t provided council much in the way of updates on the dispute. This may be because as a council, we have no authority to become involved.
Or, perhaps they just don’t know. The library board itself is not responsible for negotiating with its workers. That responsibility is farmed out to the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association (GVLRA). The GVLRA, in turn, has a board of twelve directors all of whom are locally elected politicians. But even this board does not directly carry out negotiations. Instead it delegates that chore to GVLRA manager Ron Brunsdon.
Interestingly, or perhaps shockingly, Saanich, which provides about thirty five per cent of the library budget, has no representatives on the GVLRA board since the municipality opted out of the association in the nineties. In any case, the GVLRA seems to be something of a black hole. Not much information comes out.
In the end, as a sitting elected representative for a very large number of library users, I have about as much information and about as much clout as any one of them. I don’t really know for sure if the demands of library workers are reasonable or otherwise.
Although, I do suspect there’s more than a little merit in what they request. I do know, from personal experience, that library staff are amongst the most helpful, sincere and dedicated workers that I have had the pleasure of meeting. They deserve to be dealt with in a respectful manner.
I also don’t know if the GVLRA or its representatives are bargaining in good faith. I hope they are, but the dearth of information reaching the general public makes it impossible to be sure.
What I do know is that there has to be a better way of resolving disputes in our library system. It may be compulsory arbitration or it may be something else but it has to be out there.
This time around we may have no choice but to let the system play out. When it’s all over, we need to look at how we settle disputes in such an essential part of our social network.
Vic Derman, Saanich councillor

Saanich News March 5
Letter to the editor: Lockout a hardship on users

Researching the Internet I note that lockouts are generally rare. However I can find no precedent for a library lockout. This is probably due to the fact that a library service is available to all segments of the community and the withdrawal of the total service imposes hardship on most users but extreme hardship on groups such as seniors, schoolchildren, university students, to mention but a few.
When other jurisdictions, such as regular businesses strike there are usually alternatives to obtain the services elsewhere. There are no alternatives to the local library.
I am an 86-year-old senior and, like many of my counterparts, make extensive use of my local library. The library is my second home – a home away from home. It is now two weeks since the lockout was imposed and there is no end in sight. I am outraged!
I am also outraged by the recent action of Chris Graham, Chairman of the Library Board to shut down the total operation of all libraries in the Greater Victoria area. I believe this action is unprecedented and, possibly, unconstitutional. When confrontation takes the place of negotiation the results are usually disastrous.
And what about the mayors and councils of all the municipalities in the Greater Victoria area? It appears that they are content to sit on their collective fannies and do nothing. One would think that, surely, this matter should be a high priority on their council agendas. Is there anything more important?
The unique services available in a library must, of necessity, be delivered by a well-qualified staff. Our libraries are now in the digital age. Librarians are career people – their work is a vocation – they choose it because of their dedication to the dissemination of vital services and information. However, many of them are also breadwinners. If this confrontation goes on for very long many of them will drift away to other employment.
I would have thought that the issue of equal pay for equal work should have been dealt with a long time ago.
Michael Barber, Saanich

March 5 Monday Magazine
Letter to the editor

I have just returned from vacation to find the Greater Victoria Library Board has locked out the library workers. Makes sense I guess, libraries being such subversive places. Didn’t Karl Marx write his Communist Manifesto while at the British Library? And don’t librarians fight against book bans that would prevent the likes of To Kill a Mockingbird, The Diviners and the Harry Potter series from polluting our minds? And don’t they fight for our privacy rights when police agencies try to secretly spy on us by demanding to know what we have been reading?
In a town where the jocks and headbangers get a new stadium and where non-residents (i.e. tourists) are fawned upon, people who engage in suspect behaviour such as reading get shorted. The library is underfunded compared to other municipalities, a more appropriate facility is endlessly talked about and never acted upon and the librarians are stonewalled when they have the effrontery to want the pay scale that had been agreed to years ago. Perhaps we should be grateful that GVLB hasn’t burned the books, just locked them up so that no one can read them.
Ian MacDonell, Victoria

March 5 Monday Magazine
Library lowdown: Further challenges face GVPL

With most residents still scratching their heads over the chasm that has developed between the region’s library workers union and its employer, the Greater Victoria Public Library board of trustees, local book lovers would do well to note that serious challenges lie ahead for the region’s library system.
The Library Operating Agreement that sets the cost-sharing and municipal representation formula for the GVPL board—effectively the library’s constitution—is set to expire in December 2008. If a new operating agreement is not reached within six months of the old agreement’s expiration, the entire library system dissolves.
“The current library system would cease to exist and assets would be distributed proportionally to the 10 municipalities,” GVPL board chair Chris Graham told Monday in a recent interview.
This, according to Graham, would be “cataclysmic” for the library system.
“It would be a very bad thing. It would be incredibly chaotic,” he says, with assets divided among area branches, “probably by tonnage.” Municipalities with GVPL branches in their boundaries own the buildings, but not the administrative structures that comprise the library’s functional foundations.
While operating agreements have historically been ratified before the clock ran out, the current staff lockout by the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association has added an unwanted dimension to the process of formulating a new operating agreement, making member municipalities more nervous than usual about the viability of the library system.
“It’s a really bad time to be doing this,” says Graham, who also represents Central Saanich taxpayers on the board.
Board vice chair and Saanich citizen board appointee Paul Gerrard deferred Monday’s questions to Graham, allowing simply that, “The only thing I will say is that its difficult for everyone in the present situation to try to operate as normal.”
The problem, say those experienced in local library politics, is that provincial legislation does not allow for the type of system that has developed in Victoria over time, and the current 21-member board structure has grown too unwieldy to be effective.
“The best solution would be to scrap the whole thing and start over,” past GVPL board chair Neil Williams told Monday.
“I think when it is this big it becomes a debating forum rather than an operating forum,” says Oak Bay municipal councillor Nils Jensen, who sat on the GVPL operating agreement committee during his term on the board from 2002 to 2005. The operating agreement struck during Jensen’s tenure was established for only three years, rather than the traditional five-year period, mostly in the hope the province would amend its Library Act to recognize Victoria’s unique situation.
The GVPL system operates in a grey area between the two types of library systems allowed under the provincial act. It is neither a municipal library system in the strict definition, nor is it a conventional regional system as occurs north of the Malahat.
Under the terms of a municipal system, individual municipalities are solely responsible for the administration of the branches within their jurisdiction, with their own boards comprised of elected and appointed citizen representatives. In the capital region however, Victoria remains the administrative hub for each municipality’s branch(es), with member municipalities fielding a delegation of representatives to the what is effectively a regional board.
“[The operating agreement] is really a contract that says you will join [Victoria] in running the GVPL,” says Jensen.
Conversely, a regional library system would have at its centre a board of trustees solely comprised of elected representatives with the power to levy taxes to finance the regional system—similar to the way the CRD levies region-wide fees. The current GVPL board does not possess taxing authority and must go cap-in-hand to each member municipality when it comes time to ratify the annual budget.
“Since nobody—except Victoria—actually owns the system, it is a relatively easy target for cost-cutting,” says Williams, echoing the oft-heard criticism of the system’s current structure that financial accountability proves difficult.
“Every municipality likes to build new branches, but nobody likes to pay for them,” Williams adds.
A provisional operating agreement is currently undergoing legal review by the GVPL board’s lawyers before it is taken to the participating municipalities.
The new operating agreement calls for the current 21-member board to be scaled back to 17 members, a move Graham says approximates the formula used to determine representation around the CRD board table, with each member municipality guaranteed one representative, and subsequent representatives added for every 25,000 people in a given municipality.
“There’s really no rationale for why each municipality gets the number of representatives they do [under the current system],” says Graham.
Under the new agreement Saanich, View Royal, Colwood, Central Saanich and Metchosin would maintain their current numbers, while Victoria, Esquimalt, Oak Bay, Langford and the Highlands would each lose one.
According to a GVPL dispatch released in January, the board hopes its municipal partners will sign off on the new agreement by June.
But with 2008 off to a rocky start for the region’s library, even that could be a tall order.

March 7 Peninsula News Review
Letter to the editor: Library workers invaluable resource for reader

I need the library.
I read for pleasure, for study, for research, and for life.
I don’t buy books. I can’t afford to.
In the library you get to see children reading, you see others searching through the section of large print books, you see mystery lovers in the mystery section. The list goes on and on.
The other thing you see are the library workers. They are fantastic!
And you think fantastic isn’t worth pay equity?
I don’t understand. I say suck it up, they’re worth it and I need to read.

Barbara Dawn Hooper, Esquimalt

Goldstream News Gazette March 7
Letter to the editor: Politicians must do the right thing

I’m a mother who couldn’t let a week go by without checking out an armful of books, CDs, DVDs, and magazines from the library to share with my young daughter.
We love the whole library experience including the service from the Greater Victoria Public Library staff. We sure miss it with the library workers locked out.
I quizzed my sister, a library worker, on why she and her colleagues haven’t been at the bargaining table with their employer since last June, despite their efforts to get back to negotiations. What I found out shocked me.
Library workers have been waiting since 1992 to get pay equity. That’s 16 years. In 2006, GVPL ranked sixth overall in Canada in borrowing of library material per capita but ranked 27th in funding per capita.
Why so low? We’re getting great service without paying up. How have we gotten away with this?
Our elected politicians – 12 of them – sit on the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association board and are responsible for this mess.
Well, please take note, Alan Lowe, Bea Holland and Pam Madoff (Victoria), Chris Causton (Oak Bay), Chris Clement (Esquimalt), Ted Daly and Bob Shaw (North Saanich), Jack Mar and Christopher Graham (Central Saanich), Ernie Robertson (Colwood), Don Amos (Sidney) and John Ranns (Metchosin): I will be voting in the next election and so will thousands of others who support equal pay for equal work.
And the GVPL board? Take action now to dump the GVLRA and take back responsibility for negotiations with your own employees.
Do the right thing, accept their offer of binding arbitration, and then send a message to the municipalities that chronic underfunding of our well-used library system needs to end now.
Sarah Riecken, Victoria

Times-Colonist March 11
Letter to the editor: Women’s march deserved coverage

I am extremely disappointed by the lack of coverage of Saturday’s rally for the International Women’s Day, organized by locked-out library workers.
This impressively attended event began at Centennial Square and continued with a march to the parliament building, where those in attendance spoke, sang and manifested themselves on the violence and inequities that affect women — of which the absence of pay equity is a telling example.
The meeting was publicized well in advance in the media and at various previous events and it included the participation of some of our most prominent local politicians, as well as leaders from other union chapters. The march to the parliament formed a column over two blocks in length.
Victor A. Wainer, Victoria

Times-Colonist March 11
Letter to the editor: Groundswell starts here

On the radio today, I heard the host say many times, “Where is the groundswell? You’d think the library users would rise up!”
Well, library users are young mothers, children, unemployed, the poor, busy working families, plus the rest of us. Many can’t, don’t think of it, or are too busy or too used to being shoved hither and yon by the powers that be.
So consider this a groundswell. I know my family and friends miss the library very much.
Fran Beckow, View Royal

Times-Colonist March 12
Figures from other libraries may break bargaining logjam
Kim Westad

The employer of locked-out library workers expects to have figures within the next week from other libraries that could see both sides back at the bargaining table.
“I’m cautiously optimistic that once we look at the numbers, we’ll be able to identify areas where perhaps we can sweeten the pot,” Ted Daly, chairman of the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association, said yesterday. The GVLRA bargains with members of CUPE Local 410 on behalf of the municipalities that fund the nine branches of the Greater Victoria Public Library system.
The GVLRA, made up of representatives from the regional municipalities, recently asked that a wage comparison be done with other libraries on the Lower Mainland.
“If we feel we have something to offer, we’ll contact mediator Grant McArthur,” said Daly, who said the association knows the labour dispute won’t be resolved without more money on the table.
About 300 union members have been on the picket line since Feb. 17, when they were locked out by the GVLRA. They had been in a legal strike position since Sept. 7, and taken some job action over the months.

Workers will do what it takes to reach their goal of pay equity, said union spokesman Ed Seedhouse. Other unions — Seedhouse wouldn’t say which ones — have given “expressions of solidarity. At some point, they may be willing to get involved. We don’t want to threaten. We want to bargain.”
The employer has saved enough in wages during the lockout, estimated at almost $500,000, to move toward settling, he said. Employees are not paid when locked out.
“I can’t imagine any negotiator making a public pronouncement to that effect, but the simple truth is when people aren’t being paid, there’s budgetary room to move for the employer,” said Ken Thornicroft, professor of law and labour relations with the University of Victoria business school.
Thornicroft also warned job actions based on a principle are often more difficult to resolve. “People aren’t necessarily open to rational economic arguments.”
Union members say job equity is key. They say the employer agreed a decade ago to pay equity between the library workers and City of Victoria workers doing the same type of work, and add library workers have been systemically undervalued for years, largely because they are a female-dominant workforce.
But the employer says it didn’t make that specific agreement, and that pay equity has been dealt with.
They say library workers have received a 9.5 per cent increase for pay equity between 1992 and 2005.
Seedhouse said the union has received thousands of letters of support, and last weekend, about 500 people marched in the International Women’s Day walk, organized by the library workers.

Oak Bay News March 12
Patrons demand return of library service: union holds community forum in Windsor Park

The normally reserved residents of Oak Bay unleashed hisses and cries of shame against three library officials who declined an invitation to participate in a community forum organized by CUPE 410, the union representing locked-out library workers.
For the last three weeks, library workers throughout Greater Victoria have been locked out after their intermittent strike action progressed to what the employer called unlawful activity.
At the Oak Bay meeting, the voices of library patrons were the ones demanding to be heard.
“I’ve been absolutely furious that my libraries have been taken away from me and I can’t use my library which I pay for out of my taxes,” said one of the 120 patrons in the crowd of 150. “Has anybody thought of a class action suit, taking to court, suing these people who are withholding our valuable library system?”
Another attendee created a website (www.itsourlibrary.blogspot.com) where people can vote on whether binding arbitration between the parties is the right way to go.
The main issue of disagreement is over pay equity between the library and City of Victoria workers.
Negotiations have been stalled for more than a year. While the union is calling for third party arbitrator to resolve the dispute, the employer isn’t buying in.
Recently, the NDP threw it’s support behind a third-party arbitrator.
“The lockout, if it continues, can only result in a lot of damage to morale over time and it won’t resolve the issue,” said Saanich MLA David Cubberley. “It’s a winner takes all tactic. Let someone without a vested interest determine that and if (pay equity) hasn’t been implemented, get back to the bargaining table.”
Three members of the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association, board chair Ted Daly, Oak Bay Mayor Chris Causton and Chris Graham, also chair of the Greater Victoria Public Library Board Chair, all declined to participate in the discussion at the Windsor Park Sports Pavilion on March 6.
“It’s at a collective bargaining phase, so I’m not able to speak about negotiations,” said Graham, explaining his absence. “I’m important people keep a cool head and my attendance would have riled things up.”
The lockout, said Graham, was in response to strike action by workers since September that was erratic and difficult to manage. “We were being put into a situation where we weren’t able to convert our assets into revenue and carry on.”
At the meeting, history professor Lynne Marks presented a history of women’s struggle to gain pay equity over the last century and Carole Cameron, a CUPE representative, outlined the process of evaluating jobs for the purpose of pay comparison.

sidebar: Getting back to the table
An examination of library salaries across Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland should be complete by the end of the week, says association chair, Ted Daly.
While still refusing to match library salaries with municipal workers in Victoria, the employer decided at its last meeting to compare wages with identical jobs in other districts.
“We recognize that there’s no point drawing a line in the sand and having a staring contest,” said Daly. “We realize that we’ll probably have to put some more money on the table to get the negotiations going again.”
Once the numbers are in, “we’ll see if there’s enough there to talk to the mediator and get both sides back together,” he said.

Monday Magazine March 12
2 letters to the editor: Late renewal indeed

Re: “Library Lowdown,” March 6-12
Can someone please tell us ordinary taxpayers and library users what in the world is going on? The whole structure is a nightmare to the ordinary person. We have the GVPL, GVLRA, a separate negotiator . . . all  mind-boggling to most of us.
Someone (I’m not sure which of the many players) has said that the pay equity agreement has been complied with. The union says the agreement has not been honoured. Which is true? The union says they do not have pay equity with equivalent positions in the City of Victoria and they have figures to back this up. Management won’t say what they base their assertion on. Now they say they need two weeks to see if the library workers here have pay equity with other B.C. libraries. What does that matter? If management is so sure the pay equity agreement has been complied with, why not submit to binding arbitration, as I have heard the union is prepared to do?
And, why, oh why, won’t any of the politicians who are supposedly involved in this dispute respond to our questions? The cynic in me says management is just dragging this out so they will save enough money in wages to cover whatever raise they end up giving the library workers.
I also can’t help feeling that this is a gender issue. Do we really think that male library workers would stand for being paid less than male parking attendants?
Bert MacBain, Brentwood Bay

As a longtime employee of the Greater Victoria Public Library, I feel compelled to respond to comments in three recent letters.
The lowest paid library workers are the pages—the dogsbodies of the library system who shelve the books, among many other duties—who receive less than $10 an hour, a figure reached in part by increases in the minimum wage. This extravagant amount is supplemented by 11 percent in lieu of holidays, which is immediately swallowed by the 12 to 15 percent deducted from each pay cheque. There are no benefits; no dental; no medical. If a page loses a day’s work due to illness or library closure, she loses a day’s pay. At Christmas or Easter, she may lose 10 to 20 percent of the month’s wages.
But the real issue in the library dispute is not wages—nor, for that matter, pay equity for women, which has been recognized as a basic right by the UN and the Government of Canada. The real issue, missed by some letter-writers, is the refusal of the GVPL to honour a commitment made to its employees in 1992: pay equity with city workers.
Brian Woolcock, Victoria

March 12 Victoria News
Letter to the editor: Board’s tactics sleazy

Re: Library lockout
The reason the library board has given for locking out its employees, that it is protecting its assets, is one of those lies that is so big it sounds like the truth.
But the real reason it cast library workers and patrons out on the street is because the workers had the audacity not to commit themselves to a full scale walk-out. How then could they pay for their raise themselves?
There was only one answer. Lock them out. Don’t negotiate, don’t even to talk to them, just lock them out. And make no mistake about it, as soon as the board and the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association deem that the library workers have given them enough money, they will go back to the bargaining table.
These are the same sleazy tactics used in Vancouver and Coquitlam and show such a lack of integrity on the part of the politicians that run this city and neighbouring municipalities that it should be an embarrassment to every citizen.
Bill Gallaher, Victoria

March 13 Times-Colonist
Letter to the editor: Library dispute in the hands of the wrong people

There are three bodies involved with the ridiculous library lockout we are now suffering from.
One is the negotiating team for the library employees, the second is the Greater Victoria Public Library board and the third is the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association board.
Branches of the library are in Victoria, Oak Bay, Colwood, Esquimault, Saanich and Central Saanich.
Of these municipalities, Saanich, with the most branches and mainly largest branches, is not represented on the labour relations association board. The municipalities with user agreements with the public library are Highlands, Langford, Metchosin and View Royal. Only Metchosin is represented on the board.
Members of the labour relations association board who have no connection with the Greater Victoria Public Library are Don Amos of Sidney, Ted Daly and Bob Shaw of North Saanich. To make things even more ludicrous, Daly is the chairman.
There is something wrong with this picture.
Millions of dollars worth of plant and equipment sit idle, including rows of new computers and other materials in the new branch at Tillicum.
People who rely on those computers for finding work, medical info or seniors help are being left in the lurch. The public is left with no services or recourse.
There are too many people with little interest in the outcome involved with the issue and too many of the municipalities that should be involved have walked away from their responsibilities, Saanich in particular.
Mary W. Davie, Saanich

March 14 Goldstream News Gazette
Letter to the editor: McClung and Carnegie would be disappointed

Just a few random thoughts on the GVPL library workers pay equity/lockout fiasco.
1. GVPL management/board did not listen when the library workers’ union, CUPE, asked them to meet and negotiate a new contract to bring library workers up to par with other municipal workers.
They refused to discuss the matter and now after not listening to their mainly female staff, they are punishing them by locking them out of the library. There is something wrong here…
Within the GVPL there is a branch named in honour of Nellie McClung, a person who worked tirelessly for women’s rights and equality in the workplace and the world. How can this management group (who are mainly men) hold their head up high when they demean the mainly women staff in their libraries.
What would the dear lady think of this?
2. A long time ago a Mr. Andrew Carnegie, businessman/industrialist, bequeathed the library to us by providing the funds to purchase books to fill buildings and provide a place for all to go to obtain information, knowledge and pleasure. This is a legacy given to us and which belongs to us and means our right to free access to the library and not to be ‘locked out.’ The responsibility rests with GVPL management, the library board and assorted municipal reps to honour this covenant entrusted to them.
What would the good gentleman think of this?
It’s time for GVPL management, et al, to meet with the union and the library workers and negotiate a fair settlement which is satisfactory to the workers. We will be happy for them, as they certainly deserve it.
3. A note to elected representatives: Remember this is an election year and people are talking.
Mrs. Lee Fisher, Esquimalt

March 16 Times-Colonist
Letter to the editor: Library lockout freezes research

Can either side in the library lockout help me?
I am retired and writing a book, ironically on labour history. I have been depending heavily upon the inter-library loan system to obtain microfilm and books.
As you can imagine, the library closure has put my research on hold.
After contacting management, I was told that all inter-library loan materials received from Canada Post since the lockout began remain unprocessed at the main library.
On behalf of hundreds of inter-library loan users and thousands of library patrons, please end this dispute.
Mike Dupuis, Victoria

March 19 Monday Magazine

3 letters to the editor: Budget for books

Re: “Library Lowdown,” March 6-12 
The Greater Victoria Library Board has locked out its workers since February 18.  Going on a month now, the GVLB has been slowly saving library workers’ wages—money it can use to pay back its own workers for their overdue signed pay equity settlement with Victoria Municipal workers. This is a sad solution to honour a worthwhile expense.
Parallel to this lockout, local municipalities will be soon be making final decisions on their budgets. I ask that each mayor and councillor ensure adequate money is put aside to fulfill the outstanding pay equity agreement between library workers and the GVLB (negotiated through Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association) and use our citizen dollars to fulfill the library workers’ agreement. This would be a worthwhile and honourable expense.
Wendy Wasilewski, Victoria

Various dollar amounts are tossed around about what meeting pay equity would cost an individual property owner. I, as a resident of the Juan de Fuca electoral area, already pay about three times the various figures I’ve heard mentioned—and would pay more for access to such a fantastic library.
I am disturbed by the continual lack of responsibility and leadership shown by the political players in this fiasco. With over two-dozen individuals on the GVPL board and the GVLRA, the buck-passing has been impressive. It has made it very difficult for the public to know where to call or write when most of the politicians involved state they have no say in the decisions made. How can members of the library board—the employer—say they have no influence or say?
The Board’s adamant refusal to consider binding arbitration implies to me that they know their position has no merit.
The library workers contract expired January 31, 2007. We, the public, have been locked out since February 17, 2008. How long are the workers and the public supposed to wait for the GVPL board to do their job? Give me back my library!
Anne-Marie Cerce, Victoria

Maybe it’s time to lock out the Library Board and Labour Relations Association members who seem to be totally stumped on how to perform  their assigned task and clearly lack communication skills.  To whoever holds authority over these two groups, let an  independent arbitrator assess the facts and settle this dispute once and for all, so that citizens can enjoy the wonderful resources that the  library offers—and which their tax dollars pay for—and the much appreciated library workers can again enjoy a job well done.
Ann Wilson, Victoria

March 21 Times-Colonist
It’s time to bend in library lockout

After more than a month without library service, it’s time for both sides to make a renewed effort to reach an agreement and end the lockout. The shutdown of the Greater Victoria Public Library’s nine branches is creating hardship for vulnerable people. For seniors who rely on the library for books or young families on budgets who count on it to encourage a love for reading in children, the loss is serious. Clients who use the library’s computer services to stay in contact with the online world are left without access.
And all residents are paying taxes for a service they aren’t getting.
We are not going to propose terms of settlement. But it is reasonable to remind the parties of the need for flexibility. There comes a time when the fight is simply too costly to continue. The union, for example, should not allow its demand for full implementation of a 16-year-old pay equity commitment to stand in the way of a compromise solution.
It’s also reasonable to remind the library board and municipal politicians that this is not a labour dispute like any other.
In most strikes or lockouts, both parties are under economic pressure to settle. Employees are losing wages; the employer is losing revenue and profits. Both fear customers will shift permanently to other suppliers.
In this lockout, the employer is under no economic pressure. The main revenue stream — tax money — continues to flow into the library’s coffers. The board saves money on salaries and operating costs, with no financial penalties.
That suggests one opportunity for municipal politicians to play a useful role. If the libraries are not open, there is no reason for taxpayers to continue contributing. Perhaps it’s time for the 10 municipal councils served by the library to cut off the funding until the libraries open their doors again.
It’s certainly time for them to intervene.
Politicians and the library board have said negotiations are up to the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association, a bargaining agent. But the association has little direct stake in the outcome; some of its board members are drawn from communities not even served by the library system.
And given the lack of economic pressure to compromise, political pressure is needed.
There have been suggestions that the parties accept binding arbitration. That would expose both sides to too great a risk of an unaffordable or unacceptable settlement and likely simply mean a repeat of the battle when the new contract expires.
Ultimately, the dispute will be resolved through compromise. The public and politicians can help by stepping up the pressure on both sides.

March 21 Times-Colonist
Letter to the editor: Library work is demanding

Re: “Library workers should try parkade jobs,” March 17.
It is appalling that the writer believes that a promise made as part of a collective agreement 10 years ago does not have to be upheld today.
Further, to assume that not following through on the promise of pay equity is OK because “politicians break promises all the time” is a sad statement on his perception of our local politicians.
The writer believes that library workers are paid less “because working in a library is a relatively easy job.” He would likely change his mind if he had been one of the circulation clerks who found a used hypodermic needle acting as a bookmark or been a patron who benefited from instruction in how to use a computer for the first time.
Librarians require a master’s degree, but this is the minimum and many library workers are highly educated with many years experience in libraries and related fields.
Michelle Whitehead, Victoria

Times-Colonist March 21
Letter to the editor: Bargainers have no stake in public library

This is not to rehash the pay issues involved in the lockout of the Victoria public library workers, but rather to deplore the failure of the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association to resolve the issue.
What I find unacceptable is the fact that three members of the association –Ted Daly and Bob Shaw (North Saanich) and Don Amos (Sidney) — represent municipalities that do not even belong to the Victoria library system.
These three men have nothing to lose in the negotiations (at election time, that is), have no incentive to get us out of this incredible situation and are able to indulge in stonewalling tactics, keeping our capital city without public library services. For those of us taxpayers who do, in fact, foot the library bill in Victoria, this amounts to taxation without representation.
I believe that the ability to access our excellent public libraries amounts to a civil right — a right that is being violated by the anomalous situation I have just described.
Elizabeth Frick, Victoria

Times-Colonist March 21
Library workers ‘ encouraged’

The union representing locked-out library workers is “mildly encouraged” by an informal meeting they had yesterday with their employer.
“We suggested some possibilities to the employer. They are looking at them,” said Ed Seedhouse, CUPE Local 410 representative.
Seedhouse wouldn’t say what those proposals were, but did say he’s hoping to hear back next week from the employer. “We’re hoping it will lead to something more formal.”
Greater Victoria Public Library workers, who staff nine libraries in the region, have been locked out since Feb. 17. The key issue in the dispute is pay equity.

March 25 Times-Colonist
Library rally turns up the heat on dispute
Kim Westad

About 250 locked-out CUPE library workers and their supporters packed Broughton Square in downtown Victoria today to protest the ongoing labour dispute that has cut them off from jobs and access to the public libraries.
Paul Moist, national president of CUPE as well as Barry O’Neill, the president of provincial CUPE, had the crowd cheering and clapping, as did some library workers, dressed as characters from popular books.
Many of the crowd, though, were non-partisan. Except about books.
Five-year-old Toria Kalyniuk wore a sign she’d made herself, “Open the library pleaze.” Although the Saanich girl loves “Knuffle Bunny,” she knows the Mo Willems book off by heart now.
For her mother Carmen Welta, it means reading the same books over and over and over again. The family counts on the library for their reading materials, and the lock-out has been difficult.
Toria is just starting to read and Welta wants to make sure the girl keeps challenged. Her seven-year-old son Tomas is a picky reader, so Welta counts on taking out a variety of books from the library to keep him interested.
Members of CUPE 410, which staffs the Greater Victoria Public Library’s nine branches, have been locked out by their employer, the library, since Feb. 17. Branches have been closed and the extracurricular programs held at each location cancelled.
The impact has been enough to draw Welta out to her first demonstration, held outside the main library branch, wearing a sign asking for binding arbitration.
“I don’t know all the facts in the labour dispute, but binding arbitration seems like a fair and equitable way to deal with a dispute,” she said.
Others weren’t quite as neutral about it.
For Jennifer Waelti-Walters, the dispute is about women being paid and valued less than men in the work force.
“Library workers have not been properly paid for 15 years,” said Waelti-Walters, who retired from the University of Victoria 10 years ago. There, she founded the women’s studies department. “No one would ask a male-dominated work force to go away, play nice and settle.”
The key issue in the labour dispute is pay equity.
The union says the employer has not followed through on a 1992 promise to pay library employees — 80 per cent of whom are women — the way it pays the more male-dominated and higher paid City of Victoria staff.
Library workers say they are paid 20 to 30 per cent less than city staff for what they believe is equal work. Library pay ranges from $9.81 an hour for those who reshelf materials, to a high of $33.66 an hour for librarians who run branches.
Much of the dispute comes down to one line in a 1992 letter of understanding that is part of the collective agreement. The letter outlines how jobs in each municipality and the library are to be evaluated and pay equity — equal pay for work of equal value — achieved. Each municipality and the library had their own committees dealing with the issue. (The GVPL is funded by the 10 member municipalities. They bargain with the union through the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association.)
The clause says, “It is understood that positions in the library which are equivalent to positions in the City of Victoria shall be compared for the purposes of job evaluation and pay equity.”
The union says that means that comparable library jobs and City of Victoria jobs should be paid equally. The employer said it meant that when the positions are equal, such as a librarian at the library and a librarian in the city archives, they would be paid the same. The employer says it doesn’t mean that disparate jobs would be compared and paid the same higher wage. And they say that pay equity has already been dealt with, with library workers having received a total of 9.5 per cent in pay increases by 2005 for pay equity alone.
Although there have been no formal negotiations since the lock-out, the union and the employer had an informal meeting last week that is believed to have gone well. However, at this point, no formal negotiations have yet been scheduled.
The employer is also gathering figures from other comparable libraries on the lower mainland to compare their pay to the GVPL’s.

Times-Colonist March 25
Column: Both library sides should smarten up
Iain Hunter

Before the invention of papyrus — which, I hasten to add, was well before my time — vestigial books probably were inscribed on stone or the outer bark of some species of tree.
It’s extremely unlikely that, back then, one could go to a library around here and check out one of these books: Fording swollen Bowker Creek with an armful of stone tablets would have been a hazard, keeping the bark dry a challenge — and there would have been marauders and wild beasts to avoid on the way home.
Readers of books have had it easier recently — until, that is, the dolts who run the libraries in the Victoria public system allowed the lot to be shut down Feb. 17.
The municipal politicians who sit on the Greater Victoria Public Library Board are comfortable with an arm’s length relationship from reality and seem to have surrendered power to shut down the system to the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association.
The association isn’t the only example of public bodies engaging hit men to do their dirty work for them, as teachers and hospital workers will tell you, but it’s an awful shirking of public responsibility all the same.
And it’s noteworthy that some of the GVLRA members are members of municipal councils elected by ratepayers who want nothing to do with the Victoria library system at all.
How does that make any sense?
How does that provide incentive for keeping the branches open while trying to talk sense to the militant union types who seem to have infiltrated the ranks of library staff?
The hit men, if they focus on the bottom line as hit men tend to, will know that the libraries aren’t losing money by just sitting there, with no customers.
They’ve got their share of taxpayers’ money to operate: If they’re not operating, if the librarians are out on the street, they’re not spending as much of it.
Maybe they can save enough to order new curtains for the board room, or a new tea service.
Now, I don’t want to sound as if I support, entirely, the view of the unionists. I’m inclined to feel they have about as much business shattering the peaceful, contemplative atmosphere of libraries as they have brainwashing kids in school.
This pay equity thing that seems to be at the heart, if you can call it that, of the dispute can be taken to pretty silly extremes. Paying women the same as men doing the same work makes sense to me even if women can’t stamp books with the same, authoritative force as men.
Granting compensation to one bunch of librarians equal to that given others for work of equal value seems easy enough if the comparison is with other librarians. The material I’ve seen trying to draw comparison between a kindly, helpful, knowledgeable and polite librarian with some rude wretch working in a cell as a “research analyst” for the city, counting discarded plastic bags or something, seems a bit of a stretch.
Of course the parking lot attendant below the library is paid more than the librarian stamping above. Working alone in clouds of exhaust is not nearly as pleasant as helping eager minds discover new things in rarified reading-room air.
And just because the Teamsters or whatever they are man the parking kiosks doesn’t mean that they should man the take-out counters above.
I recognize that a lot of people are paid more than they’re worth just because they’re organized.
I think it’s deplorable that if the librarians do win higher compensation it’s because they behaved like union goons, shutting down the Internet connections, not taking overdue fines and closing the branches down at lunchtime.
And I think it’s deplorable that people who are supposed to be above this sort of thing can think of nothing with which to meet confrontation other than more confrontation, of nothing with which to counter walkouts but lockouts.
Librarians are founts of knowledge and sources of inspiration and the talents that they share so generously are essential to the public. Those with a public trust must recognize that.
I’ll bet our municipal politicians today would do anything, as they should, to allow our drug addicts to exchange needles.
They should do anything they can to allow those who rely on books to exchange them, too.
In a way, it’s a matter of public health.

Time Colonist March 26
Library, union upbeat on ending lockout
Sit-in at board meeting avoided but outraged patrons vow future action
Kim Westad

A sit-in at a library board meeting was averted last night only after the library’s chief executive officer assured outraged patrons that some progress is being made in a labour dispute that has shut all branches of the Greater Victoria Public Library.
“Things are moving along,” CEO Barry Holmes told a group who wouldn’t leave a meeting at the Broughton Street branch when the board wanted to move in-camera. That’s the portion of public meetings that is not open to the public, and where the board deals with issues such as labour disputes.
“Things are happening. We are talking to CUPE,” Holmes said. Although he said he couldn’t promise any timeline, “something may happen in the next week or two.”
Ed Seedhouse, a union representative, told reporters earlier that things appear to be “moving along” but both sides are reluctant to get hopes too high.
The union and employer are expected to meet later this week.
At the library board meeting last night, emotions boiled over, with about 40 people packing a public gallery that usually has only a handful.
“The libraries are ours, not yours! Open up the doors!” Alison Acker chanted several times after the board voted to go in-camera.
Holmes went and sat with the group in the public gallery and quietly asked them to leave the meeting “as a courtesy” so the board could do its job.
The dozen people who had refused to leave the raucous meeting slowly got to their feet and left, but said that if something doesn’t happen in the next week, they’ll take some kind of action.
“We are prepared to up our action,” said Acker, who was a member of the library board 15 years ago.
Many of those attending the meeting wore placards urging the end of a labour dispute that has closed all nine library branches since Feb. 17.
That’s when the library locked out the 250 members of CUPE Local 410 who staff the branches. The lockout came after unionized workers reduced services for several months. Pay equity is the main issue.
“You decided to lock all of us, everyone in the city, out of our libraries,” said Katrin Horowitz. “It is one of the most important cultural institutions in the city. In most of our municipalities, it is our only cultural institution. …This is a shameful situation.”
Board chairman Chris Graham banged the gavel loudly and shouted “order” several times. He asked the public not to clap, laugh, boo or hiss.
“This is not a theatre. This is not an arena. … It’s not an opportunity to go watch a bullfight or something,” Graham said.
Locked-out workers held a rally earlier in the day at the square outside the Central Library, but most of the people at the board meeting said they were not union members.
“I’m not a librarian or a union member and I never have been. I’m a reader, a committed reader,” said Ruth Suter, who is involved with a citizen’s group that started a month ago called It’s Our Library.
An online poll done by that group had 98 per cent of 550 responses in favour of immediate binding arbitration. “It’s a grassroots group expression of the will of the people,” Suter said.
Judith Keith-Murray stood up with her blue library card in hand. “I have one very valuable thing. It’s worth more to me than a Visa card, more than a passport. But I can’t use it, and I’m entitled to use it. Please do something about it.”

April 2 Times-Colonist
Library deal approved: branches re-open Tuesday

The Greater Victoria Public Library’s nine branches will re-open Tuesday, and book drops at all branches will be open Friday.
The labour association that bargains on behalf of the library approved an agreement today that puts an end to a labour dispute that has seen the libraries closed since Feb. 17.
That’s when the library locked-out employees, members of CUPE 410. The GVPL’s nine branches shut down and were behind picket lines. All book drops except for the one at the Central Library on Broughton Street were also closed.
Some employees were back at work today, working with management to figure out the best way to get the branches up and running again - and to reshelf the thousands of books, DVDs and CDs that have been stuffed through the Central Library book drop.
The main entry to the branch is filled with 275 boxes of books, with another 30 book trolleys piled high.
Both union and management representatives said they’re happy a compromise has been reached that allows them all to get back to work.
“I’m very glad to see staff back in,” said the library’s chief executive officer, Barry Holmes. “Libraries have books and all sorts of material, but really, they’re about people. It’s not the same if you don’t have people.”
Most basic services, such as checking out and returning materials, information questions, access to the Internet and the library website, will be available on Tuesday. Additional services and programs will be phased in over the next few weeks.
No late fees will be charged for the time of the lockout, Feb. 17 to April 8. There will also be a two-week grace period until April 20 for the return of previously borrowed materials.
Holds that were to be picked up at the beginning of the lockout have been extended.
For more information, please see the library website at www.gvpl.ca
The key issue in the labour dispute was pay equity. Library workers took a strike vote in the fall, and held several days of job action before they were locked out Feb. 17.
CUPE 410 said they had not been given pay equity with the City of Victoria, as they said a 1992 contract promised. The library said that was not what the contract meant, and that the workers already had pay equity.
In the end, both sides compromised. They went to mediation with Grant McArthur last week.
The union agreed to pay equity compared to municipal wages at the municipalities of Oak Bay and Esquimalt, rather than Victoria, which is the highest paid municipality, said CUPE 410 spokesman Ed Seedhouse.
“We wanted to be compared with a group that had pay equity wrapped up. It didn’t have to be with the highest paid municipal workers in the region.”
The pay increases vary, depending on a person’s job. Everyone will see some pay increase, Seedhouse said, with the largest increases for those at the very bottom and very top of the pay scale.
The contract goes to Dec. 31, 2010. At that point, the union will agree that pay equity has been achieved.
Another key issue in the dispute was “wages for pages,” the people that reshelf books. All were auxiliary workers. In the new agreement, nine full-time senior page positions will be created. They’ll start at $17.80 an hour. Other pages will remain auxiliary positions, and will also receive a pay increase. When the lock-out happened, the auxiliary pages were paid $11.03 an hour. When they return to work under the new agreement, they’ll start at $12.13 an hour.

Monday Magazine April 9/08
Library roundup: 3 letters to the editor

Now that the Greater Victoria Public Library dispute is settled and the pointless lockout is ended, I hope some lessons have been learned to spare further embarrassment to our fair city. A few points, however.
There is no upside in refusing to negotiate. There is no upside in breaking promises. Ten or 15 years later it is too late to pretend they didn’t know what they signed. There is no upside to bullying. There is no upside for working people to be unorganized. Elected politicians outsourced these lowlife tactics to the GVLRA and then washed their hands.
Thank you to our librarians for your patience, strength and sacrifice. Welcome back.
Marty Hykin, Victoria  

So GVPL employees are going back to work and the public will be allowed back in. Lest we library patrons become carried away with glee at the prospect of being allowed back into our own libraries, I urge everyone to remember the huge problem we had trying to deal with the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association.
This association controlled everything but was accountable to nobody. This association is a problem in its lack of transparency, its lack of leadership, its use of bullying tactics for six long weeks until it deigned to return to negotiate with the workers in CUPE 410. The public has nothing to thank the GVLRA for and we have no assurance that it will not hold the public at ransom in another matter in the future. There seems to be no way the public can hold the GVPLA to account, other than to vote its members out of office in the municipal elections in November 2008.
I suggest citizens in the Greater Victoria municipalities demand dissolution of the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association. At the very least, this association must be re-organized to allow for greater public access and accountability.
Judith Rayburn, Victoria

Like many of your readers, I have deplored the library board taking away the paychecks of many of our fellow citizens while refusing to go to arbitration. I understand that many right-wing politicians have little sympathy for wage-earners since they aspire to be rich and powerful, or at least be accepted by such people.
I have been lazy about who these politicians are who hide their complicity behind a third party who is actually doing the “negotiations.” To my knowledge, Pam Madoff has stood up to oppose the lockout—good on her—but lazy as I am, I will not vote for those sitting on their hands at the next local elections.
For your information the councillors on the library board are Copely, Goudy, Graham, Hughes, Hundleby, Hunter, Kadar, Robertson and Screech. If they have willingly colluded to keep us out of the library for the last five weeks, then refuse to vote for them when the opportunity arises. That’s something we can do.
Roger Sandford, Victoria

 

 

 

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