Vancouver Public Library- Online Petition to Negotiate a Collective Agreement

[if you are not in Canada, please use the Central Library's postal code which is: V6B 6B1 --- the last digit is "one.]"
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ONLINE PETITION link.

Urgent Call to Negotiate a Collective Agreement

To the Vancouver Public Library Board, the City Librarian, Mayor and Council of City of Vancouver, and Vancouver City Manager:

We, the undersigned, depend on city services such as the library. We greatly appreciate the workers who dedicate themselves to bringing value to such services. We have gone too long already without these services that, in the end, we fund. We urge you to end this strike. Show our workers that you value them as much as we do by negotiating a fair settlement that addresses pay inequities, improvements for part-time workers, and job security, as many other municipalities in the Greater Vancouver region have already done.

Whereas: The free and open access to information provided through public library services is crucial to the health of democracy and civil society and;

Whereas: Employees of the Vancouver Public Library are deeply committed to the provision of high quality library services for the citizens of Vancouver and;

Whereas: Employees of the Vancouver Public Library, represented by C.U.P.E. Local 391, are on strike for the first time in the 77 year history of the library and;

Whereas: The workforce of the Library is predominantly female and;

Whereas: Vancouver Public Library workers are systematically underpaid compared to other employees of the City of Vancouver and library workers elsewhere and;

Whereas: As a result of pay equity legislation in Ontario, librarians in the City of Toronto are paid $7.00 per hour more than equivalent librarians in the City of Vancouver and;

Whereas: The Burnaby Public Library Board recently concluded a new collective agreement with Burnaby library workers which includes two major steps forward towards pay equity and;

Whereas: City of Vancouver has failed to negotiate reasonably with Vancouver civic workers even though municipal employees in Richmond, Burnaby, Delta, Surrey, District of North Vancouver and White Rock have all recently concluded new collective agreements with their employees and;

Whereas: This failure to negotiate means Vancouver residents are coping with their third municipal strike in tn years

Therefore: the undersigned petitioners strongly urge that:

The Vancouver Public Library Board urgently negotiate a new collective agreement with CUPE Local 391 as soon as possible which deals with the important issues that library workers have identified and;

The Vancouver Public Library Board deal seriously with the problem of pay equity for library workers by negotiating funded provisions which are -- at a minimum -- at least as good as those negotiated by the Burnaby Public Library Board and;

Both the Vancouver Public Library Board and City of Vancouver take urgent steps to restore public services Vancouver taxpayers have paid for and;

The City of Vancouver immediately recommence bargaining with both CUPE Local 1004 and CUPE Local 15 and that the bargaining continue in good faith until new fair collective agreements have been reached.

[if you are not in Canada, please use the Central Library's postal code which is: V6B 6B1 --- the last digit is "one.]"
ONLINE PETITION link.