Library workers OK deal

Borrowers have two weeks to return overdue books

Toronto’s library branches will reopen at 10:30 a.m. on Friday as library workers voted Thursday to end their 11-day strike.

Under the new four-year collective agreement, full-time and parttime workers will be protected from layoffs after they earn 11 years of seniority. All 2,300 workers will get a raise, though their wages will not keep up with the current rate of inflation.

The administration of Mayor Rob Ford refused to grant the city’s other full-time unionized workers a security threshold lower than 15 years. But the library board, not the administration, conducted these negotiations, and the workers appeared to have more public support than their CUPE brethren.

They did, however, make a major concession. Under the agreement that expired Dec. 31, no permanent library workers could be laid off even if the city outsourced their jobs. Library board chair Councillor Paul Ainslie, an ally of the mayor, had said the city needed more flexibility.

“We’re very happy to be returning to work tomorrow,” union president Maureen O’reilly said Thursday night. But the union still has concerns about the employment security provisions that leave parttime workers more vulnerable to layoffs, she said.

A “very strong majority” of library workers voted in favour of the agreement, O’reilly said. The board ratified the pact unanimously.

The agreement includes a wage freeze this year, a lump-sum payment of1.5 per cent at the beginning of 2013 (less for part-time workers), and increases of 0.225 per cent in 2013, 1.75 per cent in 2014, and 2.25 per cent in 2015. That is slightly less than the outdoor workers received from Ford.

Under the contract, no full-time jobs will be converted to part-time jobs and a “modest” number of fulltime jobs will be created, O’reilly said.

Borrowers have two weeks to return books that were due during the strike.