By GREGORY N. HEIRES

DC 37 has been pressing the Legislature to restore cuts in state aid to libraries as well as fighting for equal pay in the city’s three library systems.

New York Public Library Guild Local 1930 has launched a drive to boost members’ salaries to the same rates paid in Brooklyn and Queens libraries.

Local 1930 — which represents library workers in Manhattan, Staten Island and the Bronx — demonstrated Oct. 26 to demand that the NYPL adopt a fairer pay schedule. Marching for pay parity with them were their union sisters and brothers from the other library systems.

Earlier this year, the Queens and Brooklyn systems improved their relatively low pay scales to address recruitment and retention problems.

With the support of DC 37, Local 1930, Queens Library Guild Local 1321, Brooklyn Library Guild Local 1482 are also waging a battle to beef up state assistance to the city’s three library systems.

The union is fighting for the restoration of $4.4 million in state assistance to public libraries around New York State. The funding was lost when Gov. George E. Pataki vetoed a number of spending items that had been approved by the Legislature.

The restoration would trigger an extra $500,000 in federal matching funds for libraries. In October, DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts urged Albany political leaders to restore the funding.

Delegates demand fair funding
Also in October, the DC 37 Delegates Council approved a resolution introduced by Local 1930 President Ray Markey calling for the restoration. The resolution also denounced an effort by Republican legislators to replace the funds by shifting around other state monies — but only for Republican districts.

Union leaders joined State Senate Minority Leader David Paterson at a news conference at City Hall Dec. 2 to call for the $4.4 million to be restored.

At an Oct. 18 hearing of the Assembly Standing Committee on Libraries at Hunter College, DC 37 Political Action Director Wanda Williams spoke about the devastating impact of the cuts.

At the hearing, Local 1321 President John Socha said the Queens system suffered from insufficient state aid partly because the funding formula is based on 1990 census data that doesn’t include the large influx of new residents since then. Local 1482 President Eileen Muller blamed a growing reliance on private funds, a practice that undermines the American tradition of using tax dollars to provide library services for the public.

The rat was there
About 100 members joined the Oct. 26 lunchtime demonstration near the famous lion sculptures at NYPL headquarters on Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, and the city’s most popular labor demonstrator — the giant inflatable rat — participated.

Members marched with signs such as “Big Bucks for Library Bosses, Nothing for the Real Staff,” “Nothing Works without Clerks,” and “Why Should We Be Second Class Library Workers?”

“We want parity with Brooklyn and Queens,” said Mr. Markey, who spoke at the rally along with Mr. Socha, Ms. Muller, DC 37 Treasurer Maf Misbah Uddin and others. “This is an issue of fairness,” said Lynn Taylor, Local 1930’s vice president for librarians.

Librarian Steven G. Fullwood, who works at the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture, said his motivation for attending the demonstration went beyond the immediate issue of pay equity among the city’s three library systems.

“We are seeing a trend around the country to erode the wages of all library workers,” Mr. Fullwood said. “It’s up to us to stop that.”