Public Employee Press

Queens library lays off 46 (despite budget restorations)

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

Forty-six workers at Queens Public Library were scheduled to lose their jobs Sept. 3.

The library set the firings despite the City Council's restoration of $17.6 million in proposed budget cuts and after weeks of intense negotiations with Local 1321, which pressed management to explore ways to save the members.

"Everyone is very disheartened about the layoffs, which we felt could have been avoided," said Queens Borough Public Library Local 1321 President John Hyslop. "We have not experienced layoffs since the fiscal crisis in the 1970s. It's a disgrace."

To aid the laid-off members, the local is raising money to help extend coverage of their union welfare benefits, and it has posted resources for the unemployed on its Web site. Local 1321 continues to press the library to offer the workers the state's early-retirement incentive. The union pointed out that the library has the funds needed for the incentive program in an open letter to Chief Executive Officer Thomas Galante.

"We strongly urge the library to offer the incentive immediately to lessen the harm that will be caused by these layoffs," the local said in the letter.

Throughout the summer, Local 1321 officers and DC 37 officials negotiated with the library administration to search for an alternative to the layoffs. But management set such harsh conditions for averting the layoffs - including abolishing the carryover of annual leave, a five-day furlough and cancellation of the deal if the library were hit with midyear budget cuts - that members voted 297 to 50 on July 20 to reject the plan.

Threatened with 1,300 library layoffs, DC 37 and its three library locals worked together in a fight-back campaign that ultimately succeeded in restoring a total of $62 million in city budget cuts. As the Brooklyn Public Library scrapped its plan to lay off hundreds of workers and the New York Public Library laid off five this summer, the Queens layoff victims feel tremendously betrayed by their employer.

"I am devastated and disappointed," said one of the workers after receiving her pink slip. "This has created a lot of stress and financial insecurity."