Labour strike shuts down Mississauga’s 18 libraries

Striking Mississauga library workers say the city has one standard for dealing with labour costs in the unionized sector and another for management.

“How do they justify giving (library) director Rose Vespa a 7.3-percent salary increase the same year we got 0.5 per cent?” asked librarian and CUPE Local 1989 president Laura Kaminker after a strike Monday shut down all 18 public libraries in Mississauga.

Contract negotiations between the city and the union representing about 390 members who work in the libraries broke down over the weekend, with no immediate plans to resume talks.

Kaminker said the union rejected a 1.5-per-cent increase after members received 0.5-per-cent increases in 2014 and 2015; while library managers received increases between 2.7 and 4.3 per cent each year.

“It’s a complete double standard,” she said.

The city, through an emailed response from spokeswoman Vivian Peets, addressed Vespa’s recent oneyear increase, from $164,000 to $176,000: “The Director of Library Services’ position, like all other positions at the City, were (sic) compen- sated in line with our compensation practices. All Library compensation is approved in the annual budget by Council and the Mississauga Public Library Board.”

Kaminker also said 56 per cent of library staff are part-time and that many receive around $12 an hour with no benefits, no sick pay, no vacation pay and no bereavement allowances.

She said the trend has been to replace retiring full-time workers with part-time staff.

The city maintains that “over 50 per cent of part-time library employees are paid between $21.97 and $26.64 per hour.” It’s unclear how much the other part-time workers are paid.

Kaminker said she and other librarians have many years of experience and at least a master’s degree, earning between $52,000 and $57,000 annually, before tax and other deductions for 35 hours of work a week.

Asked what it is doing to curb management labour costs, the city said it “looks to manage labour costs at all levels of the organization.”

“It is important to understand that over 82 per cent of the operating costs of the library is labour.

Of that, over 81 per cent is union compensation,” the city said in its statement.