Public Comment

The evening of May 11, the agenda of the Board of Library Trustees included a period of public commentary in which speakers were allotted a mere one minute each. This period was followed by commentaries by two union members, representing SEIU Local 1021 Maintenance Clerical Units; and Community Service and PTRLA Units, and opposing commentary by two members representing Public Employees Local #1. At issue was a vote of no confidence in the current collections manager signed by 56 library employees representing every library department. Although library employees represent 1% of SEIU membership, the library is responsible for 90% of SEIU complaints. Lawyers are now involved to the tune of $375.00 an hour. 

At issue here is a serious labor dispute which in its severity has caused a collapse of employee morale. The library staff has multiple years of experience informed by professional knowhow and a strong commitment to good library practice. Its expertise is being challenged by management in a number of essential ways, chief among them that weeding and selection is still being conducted by only two librarians whereas in the past, it has been customary to assign specialist librarians in each field to oversee these activities, a policy shift that has resulted so far in the pulping of 39,000 books. Another case in point is the re-assignment of new books on the same subject to a different decimal classification in another section of the library, two floors apart, impacting library users ability to browse a shelf for related titles.  

Throughout the meeting, the trustees appeared to receive all remarks with an air of satisfaction and complacency. Could their attitude suggest, that, far from being dismayed at the current state of employee dissatisfaction, on the contrary they are quite gratified? Could this suggest that in fact, retaliation against library whistleblowers who have courageously come forth to voice complaints—a prerogative well within their rights—is exactly what the Board intends? Could it be that their agenda is focused on making conditions for long-standing library employees so disheartening that they are being encouraged to quit, creating vacancies that can be filled by new employees at far lower salaries? Recent union negotiations revolving around pay cuts would seem to indicate that in fact that is exactly what is happening. 

Not only does the Board appear to be indifferent to employee intimidation so severe that it kept a number of librarians away from last night’s meeting, it also displays the same stonewalling indifference to the public and accommodation of the public comfort. Last evening’s meeting suffered from lack of sound amplification. The names and comments of speakers as well as those of the Board secretary were at times hard to impossible to hear. The speaker’s podium had been placed in such a way that speakers’ backs were to other audience members. Only one speaker had the sensitivity to ignore the podium—absent sound amplification—and to face both the Board and the audience. 

But most tellingly, the Board continues to choose the Pittman branch to stage these encounters with the public when it could very well use Central branch’s much larger venue to accommodate the overflow crowd. This writer counted 34 occupied chairs, and 34 people forced to stand through the nearly two-hour-long meeting, some of them senior citizens. Apparently the Fire Department had paid an earlier visit to determine that room capacity only allowed that limited number of chairs. But who called the Fire Department? 

Which raises the question: does the disposition of space indicate the sad degree to which this board is motivated to dialogue with the public? Repeatedly, when the public has posed a question to this Board in good faith, it has been met with the assertion that the Board cannot answer questions. If in fact the Board is gagged, then it follows that the question-asking public is gagged as well, yet many questions were asked of this board in what appears to be an ongoing and futile exercise by a public making comments that run off the trustees like water off a duck’s back. If the trustees are responsible neither to the employees nor the public, to whom are they responsible? 

Is this the kind of library that we Berkeley citizens are paying our tax dollars to support? 

Cecile Pineda is a prize-winning Berkeley writer recently honored by the City of Berkeley for some 50 years of cultural work,; she is the author of nine works of fiction and non-fiction published by WingsPress.com. Visit her at cecilepineda.com.