Closing 2013: A Brief Background for the New Librarians
by Roy Stone
2007
Bad but not so horrid budget for the City of Los Angeles, lots of rumors
about things happening. First negotiations by Coalition of city unions
completed.
2008
Budget worse; economy of city and state and country collapsing, rumors
swarming, Coalition offers real ways to save jobs, first of which is Early
Retirement Incentive Program which would cost the city a substantial amount of
money initially but would result in hundreds, thousands even, off the payroll.
But saving jobs isn’t easy, and it doesn’t come cheap and the negotiations were
hard and they went on and on.
But in the end the unions did the right thing and the members voted the
right way to save jobs, and the those still working committed through
negotiations to pay more into retirement which gave us guaranteed health care
benefits in retirement. We also voted to pay an ERIP incentive amount that will
eventually be paid off, so current and newer staff members will see it end in
about 14 years.
2009
Budget even worse, the recession and housing/stock market/investment
-companies/banks thievery caused the destruction of many public services
including libraries across the country, including devastating cuts to our Los
Angeles Public Library.
Early retirements begin, but that means fewer staff, hiring freeze but
service to provide.
Throughout 2009-10 the Guild participated in or led rallies at various
places around the city including storytimes at the Mayor’s house. We wanted the
public to know what was going to happen to their services.
2010
Budget getting worse, implementing reduced hours, reduced services,
furloughs begin, layoffs were not threatened- layoffs were implemented. The
Guild lobbied City Council, some pretended to care others ignored our concerns
and in the end the votes were always against the employees. The Guild worked
with library Management to reduce the number of layoffs required by the City
Administrative Officer, but 15 of our newest freshest youngest librarians and 9
clerk-typists were laid off on July 1, 1010.
And because they are exempt from civil service 126 messenger clerks were
terminated, fired. The Senior Librarian in charge of each unit was responsible
for calling each person into the office, presenting them with a few HR
statements, some paperwork to sign, retrieve their keys and badge and walk them
to the door after they had collected their belongings. One of the worst days of
our lives, on either side of the desk making this a most memorable horrid time.
Things were bad but now we were reaching rock bottom. Morale was non-existent,
all we did was hope to hang on, not expecting anything good to occur, which it
didn’t. We had to reduce hours, no more Sundays, no more Monday service in the
City of Los Angeles. Library patrons began calling their City Council
representatives, and writing and emailing that they wanted their libraries
restored. A couple of city councilmen thought that they could restore services
with a parcel tax, but the idea of additional taxes even just $39 a year didn’t
poll very well. But the community still
wanted their library. So, the next idea was to dedicate a minute amount of the
funding that the city receives from assessed valuation of property tax. This
meant no increase in the amount people paid on their tax bill, just that the
library would receive a guaranteed amount of .03% after four years. The worst
year ended with a little ray of hope. It became known as Measure L.
2011
The year began with Measure L as the only priority, weekends were spent
at Farmers’ Markets and other events of any gathering, the nights were spent at
Neighborhood Councils, homeowners groups, we went anywhere we could tell people
about the City election and that there was the critical ballot measure to save
their libraries. Events were held by the Guild, donations made to the Campaign
to Save the Library, a website was created, Friends groups were contacted,
informed by librarians across the City. There were weeks and weeks of after
work meetings and weekend meetings. And finally we began to make progress, with
the responses we began to hear. On the Sunday before the election a rally was
held in the park at Memorial
Branch with about two hundred people and many news channels in
attendance. On election day over 60% of the votes supported the library. We
could hire back the laid off staff and hire new people and restore services and
hours. But that turned out to be only an idea in my head, only for two weeks
when we learned from the City Librarian that the funding in the first year
meant we could not hire back the laid off staff, we needed to restore hours and
that took many more people and so began the creation of the “as-needed” staff.
The Librarians’ Guild waged a fight to rehire the laid off staff which we won
and patiently waited as the hiring began and to their credit Administration
came back to us several times to say they could increase the pace of the
hiring.
2012
Hiring of As Needed staff was continuing to support library hours,
library hours increased and there was still not enough staff. Then As-Needed
people started to get real jobs and the numbers diminished and the help
diminished and we still didn’t have enough staff. And hours increased anyway.
Senior and Principal Librarian examinations were held, botched a bit holding up
the process.
2013
Eventually permanent promotions occurred. More hiring took
place...half-time, civil service librarians were hired. Real librarians began
to fill vacancies. Full time positions were made. Life at LAPL was being
restored and from the depths we have begun anew. Not that everyone worked out
so smoothly, hiring drags, staffing is insufficient, promotions took way too
long, hours continue to increase and staffing continues to lag. But it is still
time to cheer...we have hired new librarians, Measure L is working, services
are returning, and we...have...new...librarians.
This long recap is to tell you how we got to this point and remind the
old timers and the new ones that the Librarians’ Guild has been here fighting
for services and all levels of staffing and promoting our work as we have
always done for the past 45 years. As we face the new year there are continuing
and new challenges, and a contract to negotiate. We must improve the safety of
our members this year. We will work with Library Management also challenge
them. This is to remind the old timers and the new ones that the Librarians’
Guild has been here fighting for services and all levels of staffing and
promoting our work as we have always done for the past 45 years.
And that brings us to 2014, a bright new year.
A future article will be about all of the stuff that seems odd and
strange, and inefficient and makes our unwieldy bureaucracy even more unwieldy,
especially for the new librarians.
