Non-Union Managers in Montreal Public Library Protested

"Mergers should have decreased the number of managers, but they've had the opposite effect," Gisele Jolin, president of the 1,400-member Syndicat des professionnelles et professionnels municipaux de Montreal, said Tuesday.

Despite a city hall edict to reduce the number of municipal managers, new mid-level administrators sporting the title of "section chief" are mushrooming in the boroughs of the former city of Montreal to manage local public libraries.

The union representing municipal librarians says you don't need to know the Dewey Decimal System to figure out there are too many chiefs in circulation.

...The city agreed in the last collective agreement to move certain librarians, who buy books and program activities, to the next rung, paying $47,681 to $80,201 a year, she said.

But boroughs are refusing to accept the change, Jolin said, so they're hiring non-unionized section chiefs, who earn up to $80,343 a year while maintaining or cutting librarian jobs.