Ontario Library Workers

2012 Library Sector Meeting at CUPE National Convention

 

 

Library Sectoral Meeting at CUPE National Convention

Calls for National Campaign

Vancouver, B.C. – On Sunday, October 30 library workers from across the country attended the Library Workers Sectoral meeting at the CUPE National Convention in Vancouver.

The co-chairs of the forum were Thom Knutson, Saskatchewan Library Steering Committee, and Denise Parks, of CUPE Local 402, CUPE B.C. Library Committee.

Those attending heard provincial reports that revealed recurring themes across the country. These included budget cuts, the corporatization of libraries, unfilled positions, the advance of technology, and poor training and advancement opportunities.

 As a result of this national assault on our public library systems members in attendance at the forum called for a national campaign to alert the public to the dangers faced and to save our libraries.

Toronto’s Maureen O’Reilly, president of the Toronto Public Library Workers CUPE local 4948 gave a brief overview of the struggle against Mayor Ford and the Toronto library cuts. The campaign went viral when high profile Canadian author Margaret Atwood twittered defense of public libraries.

 Rh'ena Oake, president of CUPE local 1169, Calgary Public Library Workers’ Union gave a presentation to support locals in their efforts to develop workplace violence prevention programs, including guidelines for the development of policies and procedures.

 Alexandra Youngberg, president of CUPE 391, Vancouver, Gibsons and Sechelt Public Library Workers gave an outline of influx of technology and its affects in the library sector. This includes Radio Frequency Tagging, changing print resources and collections to electronic and digitized collections, coping with the fall-out from determining what percentage of print material should be digitized to the introduction of E-books and E-readers.