County Stalls Library Reorganization Plan Amid Union Threats

A day before nearly three dozen library workers were set to receive pink slips, county supervisors Tuesday stalled a major reorganization of the beleaguered library system amid legal threats from the workers’ union.

“To do what you’re doing is not only totally improper,” union leader Barry Hammitt warned the supervisors, “it is criminal.”

In a fiery speech to the board, Hammitt likened library workers to victims of a “hostile takeover,” in this case a centralized county library system overtaken by the seven cities where most of the branches are located.

The cities have pushed for the reorganization, designed to keep library doors open longer hours without increasing the 15-branch system’s annual $5.8-million budget. The plan would essentially lay off 34 workers, but hire back all but 15 into different jobs.

Hammitt, executive director of the Service Employees Union International, vowed to sue for a temporary restraining order if the layoffs are approved.

He said the proposal constitutes a threefold violation, running afoul of county personnel rules, the union’s collective bargaining agreement and a merit system for county employees.

Although Hammitt initially aired his legal threats when the plan was made public nearly three weeks ago, county attorneys had not reviewed the plan’s legality under the county’s union agreements.

With board Chairwoman Judy Mikels away on county business, the remaining four supervisors backed off the plan and ordered a review by the county counsel’s office.

In his speech to the board, Hammitt dubbed Richard Rowe, interim library director, a “corporate raider” hired to do the county’s dirty work of gutting longtime employees, their salaries and benefits.

“He’s taking his money and he’s leaving town,” Hammitt said of Rowe, a retired city manager hired under a $9,000-a-month contract last March to overhaul the library system.

Hammitt’s comments brought applause from a handful of library employees in the audience but little response from the Board of Supervisors, who quickly voted to delay the matter until March 3.

Only Supervisor Kathy Long spoke out in Rowe’s defense.

“I don’t consider Mr. Rowe a corporate raider,” Long said. “I think Mr. Rowe has been given a very, very tough job.”

The dispute marks the latest chapter in the saga of the county’s library system, which since 1992 has seen its budgets cut in half while fielding criticism for being top-heavy with administrators, rarely open and packed with out-of-date books.

In 1992, the county library system had 133 full-time workers and an annual budget of $11.1 million.

Today, the system is run by 67 employees under a $5.8-million budget.

Over the past year, Rowe and the various cities devised a new library plan that attempts to scale back administrative costs and funnel the savings to the branches to expand hours and update bookshelves.

Last year, some cities threatened to pull out of the central system and run their own libraries, as Thousand Oaks, Oxnard and Santa Paula already do.

Instead, the seven cities and the county agreed to join a new oversight panel--made up of city and county elected officials--that gives cities more say in how their branches are operated.

But with the Board of Supervisors still under union contracts with library employees, the overhaul plan, which would reduce the work force from 67 full-time positions to 52, has hit its first snag.

Before the board’s vote Tuesday, officials were poised to issue layoff notices to 34 workers this morning.

Those employees would then have been invited to reapply for 19 jobs.

Freeing up a projected $180,000 in staff savings, the money would then be used to buy new books and materials, even replace some of the 17 subscriptions canceled last year for lack of funds.

All that, the plan’s authors said, could be done without spending any more money.

“This proposal, as difficult as it is, is intended to at least stay within our means,” Rowe told supervisors Tuesday.

But Hammitt said the move violates terms of the union’s collective bargaining agreement that states temporary employees must be laid off before pink slips can be issued to permanent employees.

The restructuring plan, he argues, would actually increase the number of temporary workers and staff about half of the libraries with extra help--a move critics say would result in replacing skilled library employees with inexperienced workers earning lower salaries.

Although the delay will give the union time to negotiate a better deal with the county, Hammitt contends it is impossible for the county board and the city councils to create improved library services without an infusion of money.

“Part of the problem is this Board of Supervisors and the city councils have to face reality,” Hammitt said after the meeting. “Unless there’s a commitment that says putting people in libraries is more important than putting people in jail, we’re going to have a problem.”