‘THEY’VE UNDERESTIMATED US’
Library workers embroiled in lengthy strike take pride in their resilience
Lori Wightman has four copies of her favourite book, the American classic A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. She’s also a Stephen King fan. She reads 75 to 100 books a year. She can’t go in a secondhand bookstore without buying something.
“You can live in a different world for a while,” she says. “And I like to learn.”
Her children were young when she saw an ad for a part-time position in the library in Amherstburg. The perfect job for me, she thought.
Hundreds of books line the Harrow home of historian and archivist Colleen Neumiller. She has more in boxes in her father’s basement. She still has her university textbooks. She has so many books that her husband told her: “You know what would be a great job for you? A librarian. You could borrow books instead of buying them.”
Her favourite is Beowulf, the epic old English poem from the 11th century. She credits her English teacher at Harrow District High School for inspiring her.
“He really let us get away from textbook reading,” she says.
Shannon McGuire still pictures her grandfather reading on his porch. He used to take her to the old Carnegie library in Essex. He went upstairs, to the adult books. She stayed downstairs, amid the children’s books.
McGuire has always loved libraries. When she was a kid, it was the free books and movies.
“Of course, it’s bigger than that now,” she says. “Now, it’s access to information, evening the playing field for people who can’t afford books or computers, fostering literacy.”
She got her masters of library and information science degree at Western University, planning to return to work in Essex County’s libraries.
Anita Johnson went to the library in Woodslee one Saturday 26 years ago and heard about a part-time job there. Applications were due the next day. She ran home, pounded out a resume and returned to the Essex County Civic Centre the next day to submit it. The centre was closed. She banged on the door until the janitor opened it.
“Can you get this down to the office?” she asked him.
Reading “gives you different perspectives on life,” she says.
These are some of the 57 county library employees, most part time, most women, waging one of the longest strikes in the region’s history.
They’d never been on strike. “Oh no, no, no. Never!” said Neumiller.
They’re seen as pawns to get a new sick leave plan for the county’s other unionized employees, especially paramedics.
They’ve been left twisting by many of those employees, also represented by CUPE, who have since accepted the plan that the librarians are rejecting. They’ve been insulted. When they picketed a LaSalle council meeting last summer, council thanked them for behaving like “ladies.” They’re not sure what that means, but they’ll start wearing their pearls, they joked. They’re lucky just to get sick leave, library board chairman Richard Meloche has said. They don’t understand the sick leave plan the county wants them to accept, he has said. They’ve been intimidated. “If they vote no … they’re going to be walking for a very long time,” Meloche warned before they voted on the board’s “best and final offer” last week. The board will use managers to open the libraries, he warned. He warned of “other alternatives.” It’s a new deal, Meloche promised. They’ll take it, he predicted.
They rejected it 48-7. Then they posed for the media, fists in the air.
They will have been on strike six months on Christmas Day.
They don’t seem militant. Neumiller, who calls herself a “book nerd,” was aghast the first time someone screamed obscenities at the strikers. McGuire, content to let others speak, was “terrified” talking to the media.
But, said Wightman, “I like to think of librarians as quiet strength.”
The strike, which began in sweltering heat during a record hot summer, continued into the biting cold of an early winter. The holidays came and went — Canada Day, Labour Day, Thanksgiving. Now Christmas. On Wednesday, the strike will have spanned three seasons.
Johnson’s husband was part of the historic 101-day strike by Windsor’s city workers in 2009. Johnson, a 60-year-old grandmother, beat that months ago.
Wightman celebrated her 50th birthday on the picket line. Someone else celebrated a wedding anniversary; her husband joined her. At least one member lost her mother. Another lost an aunt.
The strike has been one of the toughest things many of these people have ever done.
Neumiller, who has two young children, pickets three times as many hours as she works — for less pay. One woman collapsed from heat stroke last summer. Now, “it’s pretty flippin’ cold out there,” said Johnson. They all got glove warmers last week.
Cars have gunned the line, sending strikers jumping to safety.
“I am not going to stop,” one driver mouthed to Neumiller.
Then there’s the woman who arrives at the civic centre every morning, rolls down her window and cranks up her music.
“I’ve got more songs for you,” she says. The women dance. “It gives security something to film,” quipped Johnson.
Before the strike, many of the librarians, spread among 14 branches in seven municipalities, didn’t know each other. After walking the line for six months, some feel like lifelong friends. They know what each other’s husbands do, how many children they have. The 52 women are getting to know the five men who drive the delivery vehicles.
Sometimes, knowing their colleagues will be there is the only thing that gets them out of bed. So why are they sticking it out? “It does feel like a stand against precarious work,” said McGuire.
Forty-three of the 57 workers are part time. It’s hard for many to get a second job because their hours are spread over five or six days. They won’t have a big pension. They see their banked sick time as a buffer if they need it. They fought for it, and the board admits they don’t abuse it. They’ve offered to cap the number of days they can bank.
Six months in, Neumiller isn’t as naive, and McGuire has found her voice.
“There’s a certain amount of pride because we feel we’ve been picked on, that they thought we’d be easy,” said Wightman. “They’ve underestimated us at every turn.”