INDEFINITE strike action has closed most of Camden's libraries for over a month. On March 20, a meeting of 105 strikers voted unanimously to continue until a satisfactory settlement is reached. They marched to their UNISON branch AGM chanting "No more shushing, no more quiet, these librarians want to riot".
Camden Council in north London plans to impose a new management structure in its libraries. This involves an increase in management posts of 30 per cent, a decrease in frontline posts (library assistants who work at the counters and do a lot of the backroom admin work) of 26 per cent. It will mean redundancies and downgrading, forced changes in parttimers' hours which may mean loss of pay and other conditions.
The strike has been solid, with management only being able to open 2 out of 13 libraries. A threatening letter from management has only made the strikers more determined The driver of the bus being used to smuggle scabs into St Pancras Library near King's Cross station refused to drive the others up to West Hampstead after he was told who he was driving. They had to go by taxi. Strikers commented 'Can't they go by train like the rest of us?' The staffing structure proposals for Camden libraries are not just an attack on jobs and conditions for workers there, though. They are clearly part of an planned attack on Camden's library service, as the Council plans.to implement the recommendations of management consultants KMPG made in a recent review. Susan Moore KMPG's view is that Camden has too many libraries. They suggest closing most of them down and selling off the buildings and land, and running the service through a few big libraries with other access points situated in supermarket kiosks etc. If such ideas are implemented in Camden, other boroughs are likely to follow.
Of course, this would mean job losses and downgradings - why pay decent wages just to stamp a few books?
This misses the point of what library services are about, and the jobs their workforces do.
Public libraries started in the 19th century and developed in this one as a means of making books and education available to working class people, Previously, libraries were the preserve of elites - those in universities and those who could afford to subscribe to services to borrow the latest books. bunal ruled that action short Some cheaper services existed -but these would have been in rooms at the back of shops and their stock would have been limited to popular fiction. A twopenny lending library in a kiosk down at Sainsburys? No thanks -. it's hardly the same.
Libraries are places where people go to borrow and read a wide range of books, newspapers and magazines which they could not get elsewhere. They also go there for social reasons, to get out of the house, or off the streets, to somewhere warm and dry. Students use libraries to study and many people use the computer facilities. All this needs people to help find books and use equipment, do backroom admin work for reservations etc.
Many of the additional services are provided for a fee, but until now, the principle of free book lending has remained. We should defend this principle, and seek to extend it to other services such as access to information technology, rapidly becoming a new class dividing line in this society.
The Tories wanted to introduce fees, and KMPG's proposals would pave the way for charges, always a temptation when councils are constantly told they have to cut costs and generate income.
This struggle from Camden Unison members to defend their jobs and local services needs solidarity and support. • Send messages to the strikers and donations.to the strike fund, invite speakers to meetings, and in London, join the picket lines. Contact: Camden Unison, 59 Phoenix Court, Brill Place, London NWI, tel: 017191 1 1633 for details. Fred LePlat THE PUBLICATION of the preliminary agenda for UNISON's national conference in June gives a clear indication of what most concerns branches: defence of public services and the welfare state against attacks from the New Labour government, and defence of democracy against the attacks from the bureaucracy.
The topic with the highest number of motions is the Welfare State with motions. Then comes democracy with 18 motions, and close behind trade rights, PFI and Attacking the left: Bickerstaffe privatisation, the minimum wage and public services. The concerns of branches are report which demonises the left by describing the CFDU as an organisation "external" to the union, as it seeks to interfere into the affairs of the union i by attempting to get UNISON to adopt its policies and get its candidates elected! The CFDU is composed only of members and its activities are those of any union broad left.
The attack has caused such concern the London and Northern Regions called an unprecedented national conference in Newcastle on Saturday March 21. The purpose of this meeting, attended by nearly 300 activists from across the country, was to plan a common approach in defending branch autonomy and the right to campaign. Most of those attending were supporters of CFDU, SWP OF UNISON Labour Left with a few independent activists and five NEC members. Despite tactical differences,
branches organise to defend union democracy 300 attend Newcastle