Madison and Whitewater AFSCME Locals Settle Contracts

MADISON. . .Local 60's Professional Librarian and Library Worker bargaining units have two-year settlements. Wage increases are 3% 1/1/08, 2% 1/1/09 and 1% 7/1/09. The Employer will continue to pay up to 105% of the lowest cost health insurance plan offered. The parties established a sick leave bank. Sick days earned above the 150 day maximum will be 50% paid out annually and 50% added to the bank. The parties also agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding on workplace security and Sunday hours.

WHITEWATER. . .Local 1145's City Hall/Library and DPW bargaining units have new 3-year Agreements. Both units received 3% 1/1/09, 2.5% 1/1/10, and 2.5% 1/1/11. In addition, workers will receive .5% more each year in 2010 and 2011 if state levy limits are increased. The City will conduct a classification/compensation review during the summer of 2009. The Employer continues to participate in the state health insurance plan at the rate of 105% of the lowest cost plan offered. The City will sponsor a dental plan, but participating employees will pay 100% of the premiums. Other benefit improvements include an additional floating holiday, extension of sick leave to cover immediate family including domestic partner, and addition of domestic partner to bereavement leave.

AFSCME Wisconsin.

Professionals for the Public Interest

The American Library Association (ALA) and the American Library Association-Allied Professional Association (ALA-APA) joined a coalition of 19 national and global organizations in announcing the formation of Professionals for the Public Interest (PftPI) at a press conference at 9:30 a.m., Wednesday, May 20, in the First Amendment Lounge (13th floor) of the National Press Club. The organizations include professional associations and unions representing professionals in science, engineering, health, the arts, and human services.

Toni Samek to Keynote on "Academic Freedom and the Responsibility of Librarianship" at CAUT Librarians Conference [October 23-25, 2009.]

Canadian Association of University Teachers.
2009 Conference: Negotiating for Parity: Closing the Librarian/Faculty Gap. [October 23-25, 2009].

Academic Freedom and the Responsibility of Librarianship.

Toni Samek (Professor, School of Library and Information Studies, University of Alberta)

Academic freedom allows librarians to vigorously oppose efforts to censor,filter or divert information. It also allows librarians to critique workplace mechanisms and structures that interfere with the exercise of their duties. It is therefore essential that academic freedom parity exists between academic librarians and faculty in respect to collective agreement language. It is equally important that librarians elevate the exercise of academic freedom to a central place in the culture of their workplaces, as faculty have done.

Program in pdf is here .

King County library unions merge to form second-largest local in Council 2

SEVERAL YEARS AGO Local 1652-lm, King County Library Maintenance, had about 15 members who were the only union workers in the library system. The local has now merged with Local 1857, the King County library workers, and the resulting local is 970 members strong.

Local 1857 is now the second largest Council 2 local in the state.

The rapid growth in the local has its origin in 2002. It was then that 550 members of the library voted to join Council 2. At the time they became local 1857 and eventually bargained their first contract. Then, last year, 400 library pages voted to join Council 2.

Now the 550 members of local 1857 have merged with the pages as well as the original maintenance workers to become one big local 1857, putting it second only to the City of Spokane local, which has 1,100 members.

“Our eventual goal is to negotiate one contract for all of these library workers,” says Council 2 Director of Organizing Bill Keenan. “That is one of the benefits of merging them into one unit.”

In addition to the newly merged local, Council 2 represents the 83 supervisors, Local 1857-s, of the King County Library System. They recently joined Council 2 and now have a contract as well.

Keenan worked on the project to organize the library workers from the day it first started.

Assisted by a large group of dedicated and enthusiastic members of the organizing committees from the library system, he worked steadfastly to ensure the project’s ultimate success.

Almost all of the eligible employees at the library system are now members of Council 2.

RockyHill, CT Librarians Lock Up Health Premiums to 2012, Raise Wages 15.4%

Librarians in Rocky Hill, members of Sub-local 39 of UE Local 222/CILU, have a new four-year contract that locks in their health insurance percentages through June 30, 2012 and increases wages by 15.4 percent.

[thanks to Sanford Berman].

Brockton Public Library To Close 2 Branches.

Brockton Public Library (Massachusetts).

None of the branch positions at the East and West buildings will be funded in the fiscal 2010 budget.

Currently, a total of five employees work full- and part-time positions at the branch libraries, said Laurie Cavanaugh, president of the Brockton Public Library chapter of SEIU Local 888.

Rutherford [NJ] Librarians Settle Contract After Long Struggle

After two and a half years, a new contract for Rutherford Public Library employees will be voted on by the Rutherford mayor and council this week-a vote that will put to an end to the negotiations process that's been ongoing since late 2006.

The contract, which covers the 21 full- and part-time employee members of the Rutherford Library Association, features a 3.75-percent raise for employees in 2007 and a 3.25-percent raise for each subsequent year through 2010.

"We've achieved the goals we set out to achieve," said children's librarian Jane Tarantino, who was one of the two representatives in charge of negotiating the new terms.