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Vancouver Library Union Rejects SettlementStriking library workers at Vancouver (B.C.) Public Library overwhelmingly rejected October 9 a mediator’s proposal to end their 12-week-long strike. The 775 members of CUPE Local 391 voted 78% against the proposal, the Vancouver Sun reported October 10. The deal would have included a 17.5% wage increase over five years, a $1,000 signing bonus, and a wage reclassification, equivalent to an additional 4% raise, for about 300 library workers. The union said that the proposal did not address its pay equity concerns, requesting that the money be spread among all members and that a committee be created to compare library workers’ pay to that of city workers doing work of equal value. “We made a commitment that no one would be left behind,” said striking worker Peter DeGroot in the October 9 Toronto Globe and Mail. If only half our membership gets that extra adjustment, that’s not the social justice we’ve been talking about.” Mediator Brian Foley claimed he did address pay equity, but that providing a wage adjustment to all library workers would have given some more than civic workers doing equivalent work. “What I did was select the wage rates that were the most disparate, and I fixed those.” Vancouver’s two other striking unions split on accepting the settlement. The city’s inside workers accepted the deal; a majority of striking outside workers voted to accept the deal as well, but fewer than the two-thirds majority needed by that union’s rules to accept a new contract. Other Canadian libraries are also facing the prospect of strikes. Staff at Greater Victoria (B.C.) Public Library have periodically closed libraries and picketed for a few hours at a time since September over pay equity issues, claiming that the city has not followed through on its 1992 promise to pay library staff the same wages as equivalent City of Victoria staff, the CanWest News Service reported October 10. And Vaughan (Ont.) Public Library workers set up an information picket outside the library board meeting October 11 that CUPE Local 905 says could be preparation for a lockout or strike starting October 27. The Vaughan union and the library reached a tentative labor agreement during the summer, but the library board rejected that agreement at its September meeting. Posted October 12, 2007. |
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