Library to cut wages, benefits but will add workers

The Saskatoon Public Library plans to cut its expenditures on salaries and benefits by almost $700,000 next year, despite adding the equivalent of four new full-time staff.

According to its 2018 budget, which was approved last week by city council, the library expects its total compensation costs to be $12.4 million next year, compared to $13.1 million it spent in fiscal 2017.

Carol Cooley, the library’s CEO, told the Saskatoon StarPhoenix in October that some of the library’s roughly 260 unionized employees could face wage cuts as they apply for new positions amid an ongoing restructuring.

Library spokeswoman Janna Sampson said Friday in an email that the savings come through “incremental operating efficiencies” including reduced overtime, not asking employees to fill in for colleagues who are sick or on holiday if it is not required.

“When you combine the incremental impact of these efficiencies across 14 service points, 334 days of operation and approximately 570 open hours per week, it adds up,” Sampson wrote.

Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 2669, which has been without a contract since the end of 2016, has previously raised concerns about the restructuring causing uncertainty among its members.

“What we need is just some solid language that the restructuring isn’t going to make it so that our members can’t feed their families and they can’t pay their bills,” Local 2669 president Pamela Ryder said Friday.

“Anything that would interrupt that or make that even harder isn’t where we want to go.”

Announced in 2016, the restructuring will create what the library calls “a community-led service model.”

Cooley told the StarPhoenix that while most of the unionized workers will have to re-apply for positions, all current employees will have a place in the new structure.

Earlier this year, the library laid off 20 employees — representing 14 full-time positions — in response to a now-restored $4.8 million funding cut handed down by the provincial government in its unpopular 2017-18 budget, which aims to halve a $1.2 billion deficit this year.

According to the library, four of the people handed pink slips chose to retire, 13 accepted new positions with the library and five chose to leave the organization for other reasons.

Sampson said the library employs around 300 people, including unionized and non-unionized workers. Those employees are expected to account for the equivalent of 148.8 full-time positions next year.