Madison’s Mayor Joins Librarians’ Labor-Rights Rally

Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz (center in baseball cap) rallies with Wisconsin librarians.

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By Sharon McQueen

Mayor Dave Cieslewicz joined Wisconsin’s librarians March 6 as they again assembled to march to the State Capitol in opposition to Governor Scott Walker’s Budget Repair Bill (PDF file), whose passage would dramatically curtail collective bargaining rights for public-sector employees.

“I was proud to join librarians to march to the Capitol and fight Scott Walker’s divisive policies,” Cieslewicz remarked March 8. “Librarians, like our teachers, police officers, and fire fighters make incredibly important contributions to our community. And in Madison, we know how to work together with our workers and solve our problems together.”

Cieslewicz also objects to Gov. Walker’s proposed state budget for the 2011–2013 biennium, which was released on March 1. According to the March 3 issue of the Channel Weekly, published by the Wisconsin Division for Libraries, Technology, and Community Learning, proposed cuts to library system aid would be decreased by 10% for 2012 with funding remaining flat for 2013. Similar cuts are proposed for BadgerLink, an online information resource for Wisconsin residents, and NFB-Newsline, a free dial-in service that provides access to more than 50 newspapers to those Wisconsin residents who for any physical reason cannot read normal print. The newspapers, including the Wisconsin State Journal and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, are made available through the use of computerized speech.

In addition, the Executive Budget proposes elimination of the “maintenance of effort” currently required by Wisconsin Statute 43.15 (4)(c), which is designed to prevent sudden and drastic cuts to library budgets:

The Governor recommends eliminating the requirement that municipalities and counties maintain annual local expenditures for public libraries at the average of the prior three years as a condition for being a member of a public library system.

The Wisconsin Library Association (WLA) opposes the proposed Budget Repair Bill and affirms the collective bargaining rights of public employees. On February 28, the WLA Board voted unanimously to endorse ALA’s Statement in Support of Worker’s Rights to Collectively Bargain and drafted its own. In his February 1 State of the State Address, Gov. Walker reminded Wisconsin’s citizens of the state’s tradition of frugality, as is mentioned in the Wisconsin Constitution. In an online statement, WLA President-elect Ron McCabe commented on another Wisconsin tradition—fairness:

The Budget Repair Bill is certainly frugal, but it is also certainly unfair. The bill has been promoted as a means of making the compensation of public employees fair when compared with the private sector. Librarians will be glad to direct legislators to the many studies which prove that public employee compensation including pensions and health insurance is below compensation for comparable private sector jobs, both nationally and in Wisconsin. Inaccurately portraying public employees as being overpaid is unfair. It is also unfair to include sweeping policy changes in the areas of collective bargaining rights, Medicaid eligibility, and the sale of public assets in an emergency bill designed to strictly limit debate on these important issues.

The Wisconsin Library Association supports the Wisconsin traditions of frugality and fairness. We are proud to stand with those who oppose this unfair legislation.

In testimony McCabe gave February 15 to the Joint Committee on Finance, he said, in part:

Like other public organizations, public school, technical college, university, and community libraries are only as good as the people we can recruit and retain to work in these institutions. We recruit nationally for professional staff. Any long-term policy to reduce and suppress public employee compensation, like the bill before you, damages our ability to staff these important institutions with those capable of providing high-quality educational services.

The faculty and staff of the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s School of Library and Information Studies have also publicly opposed “the abolition of most collective bargaining rights by the Budget Repair Bill.” In a letter to the governor and legislature, published in the student newspaper The Badger Herald, they wrote, “We believe this will grievously harm the University of Wisconsin, its undergraduates, graduate students, employees, and, not least, all of the people of the state,” concluding:

We stand in solidarity with our sister universities throughout the state, and with the teachers, teaching assistants, office workers, and many others who clear our roads, guard our prisons, keep us safe, and educate our children. We want a Wisconsin that looks forward, toward a bright future in a 21st-century economy. And we also want a civil Wisconsin, where critical decisions concerning hundreds of thousands of citizens aren’t made overnight by fiat. We have real problems in our state; to solve them, we must sit down together. We call on the governor and the legislature to take a step back, to listen to all of the state’s citizens, and to work together to build a common future.

The crowd of more than 60 library protesters, easily double that of the previous week’s rally, eagerly cleared space for Mayor Cieslewicz who was asked to say a few words. He spoke briefly of his support for libraries and library workers and specifically of his support for the upcoming renovation of the Madison Public Library’s Central Library building, and announced that he would be marching with the librarians to the State Capitol—news that library supporters greeted with applause and cheers.

Those also marching included pediatrician and librarian Dipesh Navsaria, who was also there to oppose Gov. Walker’s proposed cuts to health care; Christine Pawley, director and professor of UW–Madison’s School of Library and Information Studies; Karen Zweizig, former director of the Janesville Public Library; Charles Read, dean emeritus of UW–Madison’s School of Education; Sarah Farrer Bukrey of the Stoughton Public Library; Jaime Vache of the Madison Public Library; and James P. Danky, coeditor of the series Alternative Library Literature.

The library professionals were joined by a number of library supporters, including patron Judy Skog, who proudly proclaimed, “I love my library!” and plastic palm tree–carrying John Kamerling who said, “I’m here because I hate injustice and I’m proud to march with the librarians.” The palm trees, which have become a popular demonstration prop in Madison, are a visual reference to a February 28 O’Reilly Factor broadcast during which footage of a combative protest incident in Sacramento, California—with palm trees clearly visible in the background—was shown during discussion of events taking place in Madison. The following day, the Madison Capitol Square was covered in plastic blow-up palm trees.

Enthusiasm appears to be building for another librarians’ protest, scheduled to begin at 11:30 a.m. Central time March 12 outside the Madison Public Library’s Central Library.

SHARON McQUEEN is a doctoral candidate in the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Library and Information Studies.

American Libraries, Tue, 03/08/2011 - 18:14