Public Employee Press

Dark day at Queens Library

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

QUEENS LIBRARY workers dressed in black Sept. 3 as they protested the layoffs that tore through their ranks that day.

Holding signs that said simply "44" to mark the number of employees fired, the members of Library Guild Local 1321 demonstrated at the Queens Central Library in Jamaica and distributed leaflets about the layoffs to the public. Local members also organized another protest at the Flushing branch.

"We are heartbroken that this is happening," said Sr. Librarian Aliqae Geraci outside the Central Library.

The demonstrators expressed their outrage that Queens Library Director Thomas W. Galante ordered the layoffs even after the City Council restored $17.6 million to the library.

"The two other library systems had hardly any layoffs," said Sr. Librarian Mike Wong, a vice president of the local. "And Queens got more money than they did in the restorations."

As the City Council deliberated Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's proposed budget earlier this year, management officials at the Queens, Brooklyn and New York Public Library systems said the city funding cuts could cause more than 1,000 layoffs. But after the budget restorations Brooklyn canceled its plan for hundreds of layoffs and the NYPL, which runs the public libraries in Manhattan, Staten Island and the Bronx, terminated only five employees.

"This is going to mean worse service for the public," Reference Librarian Dan Thom said as he distributed fliers to passersby. "There are going to be longer lines at the circulation desk, and it will take longer to get reserve books."

Local 1321 President John Hyslop called the layoffs fiscally unnecessary.

In negotiations over the summer, the local pressed the library to use funds from its foundation to keep the employees working. The local also proposed - fruitlessly - that the library let the affected employees participate in the state's early-retirement program.

Members voted down the library's offer to hold off the layoffs for a few months if the local agreed to givebacks. Under the rejected deal, the library could have carried out the layoffs if it faced midyear budget cuts - but the remaining members would still have been stuck with the givebacks.

The downsizing caused administrative disarray, and management ordered transfers to fill growing personnel gaps. Local 1321 has filed a grievance against the transfers, which violated contractual procedures governing the transfer process.

"This has been a job where I have been able to help people," said Children's Librarian Selina Sharmin, expressing her regret about being laid off that day. A native of Bangladesh, Sharmin said she had especially enjoyed helping out the large immigrant population in Queens.

"Living and working in Queens, I feel like I'm working at home," Sharmin said.

She said she would miss the strong bonds she developed with her coworkers. "We are like family,"she said.