Toronto library board leaves room for more staff cuts

Earlier this week, the Toronto Public Library Board made clear its opposition to reducing hours and closing branches, but left itself open to additional staff, collection, and programming cuts.

At a meeting that stretched over five hours and saw more than 100 community members in overflow seating, the library board discussed its options for attaining a 4.3 per cent cut to its 2012 operating budget in order to reach the 10 per cent total reduction demanded by Mayor Rob Ford. The board had previously approved eliminating 100 full-time staff positions and implementing new technologies, amounting to a savings of $9.7 million, or 5.7 per cent of the budget. On Monday, chief librarian Jane Pyper proposed trimming hours at 59 of the system’s 98 branches and shaving from collections to bridge the remaining gap.

According to the Toronto Star, board members rejected any changes to service hours, claiming it would go against public interest. Pyper assured that cuts would otherwise come from adult literacy, home library, and homework programs. “If the board’s top priority is to preserve branch open hours [...] we have to look at programs we have tried to protect which generally speak to children and those who are less able to access our services,” Pyper says in The Globe and Mail.

The board did pass a motion to increase room rental fees for library auditoriums, theatres, and meeting rooms, and told Pyper to hit on more money-generating options, such as raising overdue fines, introducing new charges for failing to collect items on hold, paid parking spots, and sponsorship. (Pyper has already dismissed many of these as ineffective.)

TPL Workers Union president Maureen O’Reilly, who presented a deputation at the meeting, says the night took a surprising turn when a board member tabled a motion requesting Pyper to look into dropping 60 additional full-time jobs. O’Reilly says chair Paul Ainslie improperly permitted the motion to proceed considering another motion had already been put to the floor calling for no further cuts to the library budget (a recommendation that was unanimously approved by the board’s own budget committee on Nov. 1). O’Reilly says the chair’s action flouted procedure and compounded the sense of disconnect between the board’s decision-makers and the community.

The board will meet next on Dec. 12. In the meantime, it will continue its public survey and wrap up a month-long series of public consultations Friday evening at the Bloor/Gladstone branch. City councillors Mike Layton and Ana Bailao will be in attendance from 6:30 to 8 p.m.

TPL union names winners of lunch with Atwood contest

The Toronto Public Library Workers Union has announced the winners of its “Why My Library Matters to Me” personal essay contest. Each of the 44 winners will have lunch and tour a local literary landmark with a participating author — Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Linwood Barclay, Joy Fielding, Judy Fong-Bates, Sylvia Fraser, Vincent Lam, Robert Rotenberg, Susan Swan, Anna Porter, or Jeremy Tankard.

The contest is part of the union’s Project Rescue campaign to prevent library funding cuts as proposed by the municipal government. (Q&Q has previously reported on the contest and Project Rescue.)

In an e-mail to Project Rescue supporters, TPLWU/CUPE Local 4948 president Maureen O’Reilly says more than 500 submissions were received in a span of two weeks. The winning entries are now posted at the contest website, including this homage to Charlie Chaplin.

Toronto Public Library union to hold read-in

The Toronto Public Library Workers Union will hold a read-in Sunday, Aug. 28, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Nathan Phillips Square. The event is being held in support of local library branches that have been threatened with closures, service reductions, and cuts to operating hours.

According to the group’s Facebook event page, the union aims to “gather all book lovers young and old alike to show their love for the free services provided by your local library…. Together let’s send a strong and loud message to [mayor Rob Ford and city councillor Doug Ford]: our public library is not for sale!” The notice goes on to invite the public to join library staff and members of Toronto’s literary community with a book and a blanket for a family-friendly afternoon of storytelling and communal reading.

The read-in is the latest in a series of public outreach initiatives organized by the union, including information pickets at North York Central Library and the Toronto Reference Library, and  the union’s widely publicized Project Rescue campaign. So far the campaign includes an online petition with over 46,000 names, and a personal essay contest supported by the likes of Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, and Anna Porter, which launched Thursday.

Atwood followers crash TPL petition website

Margaret Atwood took to Twitter on Thursday to mobilize her 225,302 followers against the potential privatization and service cuts to the Toronto Public Library. The traffic resulting after @MargaretAtwood retweeted “Toronto’s libraries are under threat of privatization. Tell council to keep them public. ourpubliclibrary.to” crashed the website hosting a petition against a consultant’s report suggesting the closure of TPL branches and a reduction of service hours. The petition, dubbed “Project Rescue,” was launched by the Library Workers Union Local 4948 shortly before the audit’s findings were announced. From the Globe and Mail:

The report recommended Toronto, “rationalize the footprint of libraries to reduce service levels, closing some branches” in order to save $13.3-million. The consultants also suggested trimming library outreach and programming. …While the report didn’t suggest outsourcing as a way to cut costs, [library workers' union president Maureen] O’Reilly insists it’s “still in play.”

…

As part of the campaign, the union set up a website and a petition last week responding to councillor Doug Ford’s comments in February that the city is going to be “outsourcing everything that is not nailed down.” Mr. Ford fuelled the campaign by carping on CFRB radio recently that his neighbourhood has more libraries than Tim Hortons – Etobicoke has 13 libraries and 39 Tim Hortons.

The story goes on to report that TPL has already outsourced the selection of its paperback collections, as well as its custodial and maintenance positions.

The report, written by external consultant KPMG, is the result of the group’s audit of approximately 105 of Toronto’s public works services to sniff out possible savings, in response to a $774-million deficit in the city’s 2012 budget. The report released Thursday was the final of eight parts released over the past few weeks and, according to the Toronto Star, it also suggested eliminating public health programs for low-income children, AIDS prevention, drug diversion, and dental hygiene.

Once the petition website was brought back online Friday, Atwood tweeted “The site’s back up!! :) M: TX Help protect most-used library system per cap. in N. America: http://t.co/JIiwfeA.”

Toronto Public Library Workers Union given legal strike deadline

After nearly two weeks of silence surrounding negotiations between the Toronto Public Library and the Toronto Public Library Workers Union (TPLWU), it was announced today that the Ontario Ministry of Labour has granted the TPLWU a legal strike deadline of 12:01 a.m. Monday, Nov. 9.

As reported by Q&Q Omni last March, the city’s 2,400 library workers split from the Toronto Civic Employees Union (TCEU) Local 416 to create their own union. However, the new TPLWU soon found itself facing the same concession demands confronted by the TCEU in a summer that saw an extended strike by city workers. 

Eighty-six per cent of TPLWU voted in favour of a strike as of Oct. 10, but negotiations are ongoing.

The union is asking the TPL for more full-time jobs and “fairer treatment of part-time workers.”

According to a TPL inter-office memo, should a legal strike/lock-out occur, the following disruptions are to be expected:

• All library branches and facilities, including Bookmobile and Home Library Services, would be closed
• All computer services, including Web-based and dial-in service, would be suspended, including renewals
• All telephone-based service would be suspended, including renewals
• All scheduled meetings and events would be cancelled. Room rental charges would be refunded, as appropriate
• All book drops would be closed. Borrowers would be asked to keep library materials and not return them until a strike/lock-out is over