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Letter to the Editor

From a Library Worker

Since COVID-19 erupted in New Orleans in mid-March, library workers have been fighting for workplace and community safety. We’re very aware of our vital place in the community, and also the enormous potential to contribute to community spread of the virus. Because of our unique position as a public resource and a potential site of infection, we want to do our part to serve the enormous needs of the public as safely as possible. There is so much we can do while mitigating the risk to ourselves and those we serve. This crisis presents an opportunity to reinvent our library system (and our city) as a more tech-savvy and flexible organization that responds to the changing needs of the citizens of New Orleans — if our administration and city government give us the resources and trust to do so. So far, they have lacked the imagination to build a true “City of Yes” or to listen to those of us with the most experience and investment in New Orleans, especially city workers.

Now, Mayor Cantrell and CAO Montano, with the complicity of the City Council, are attempting to kill the library’s independent millage, rolling it into a larger city millage that will cut 40% of the library system’s budget while siphoning our designated tax funds into unspecified “economic development” projects. If this proposal to combine dedicated millages succeeds, they will dole out tax funds to the library, but only what they think we need, and only as long as we comply with their agenda for us and for the City.

Make no mistake – this cut isn’t because the library is overfunded, but because the library has access to dedicated tax funds that the City can’t easily access. These are funds that the citizens of New Orleans overwhelmingly voted to dedicate to the library in 1987 and 2015. The Mayor’s ballot proposal is demanding you say that your own judgement about where your money should go was wrong, that the Mayor and CAO know better how to spend your tax dollars. At meetings last month, City Council members ignored over 900 public comments, most saying “we want our money to go to the library, don’t do this” in order to approve this proposal. Many public comments invoked the global demands of the BLM movement and protests, reminding Councilmembers that the public has called for cuts to the New Orleans Police Department, not the library system. If the proposal passes the Bond Commission, it will be on the ballot December 5, 2020 and your only option will be to VOTE NO to the proposal to kill the library’s dedicated millage. After the public defeats the Mayor’s agenda, we will seek to encourage her to put a true millage renewal on the ballot in 2021.

There is so much we can do before December 5th – contact your Councilmember, the Mayor and CAO and tell them you do not support this proposal to kill the library’s independent millage. Promise everyone you contact that you won’t vote to re-elect them if they support this rampant misappropriation of both city funds and public trust. When you tell others about what they’re attempting, make sure to point out that this is about controlling tax funds the public designated to specific departments, because that’s the part they’re counting on the public not to recognize. They’re using the cover of the COVID-19 pandemic to talk about austerity and budget shortfalls, but this combined millage was proposed to the City Council in 2019, before COVID-19 had affected the City. Their agenda is to kill the dedicated budget of one of the only institutions in New Orleans that exists only to serve the people of New Orleans – each and every one.

They’re coming for the library’s budget now, but it won’t stop there. Please join us. You can email us nolacityworkers@gmail.com and follow our fight on Facebook at facebook.com/cityworkersnola

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Philadelphia Library Workers Demand: Keep Libraries Funded, Open to Community

Library workers in Philadelphia, along with allies, have been organizing to keep libraries in the city open and fully funded. In 2018, an average of two branches out of 54 were closed on any given day, either due to lack of staff or building problems. Many libraries, for instance, need roof repairs. There were a total of 750 emergency closures in 2018.

On June 13, around 50 members and allies of the Friends of the Free Library demonstrated outside City Hall. The unionized library workers and supporters are demanding an annual funding increase of $15 million a year. Remarkably, they have pushed Mayor Jim Kenny and the City Council to agree to a $3.5 million increase in the 2020 budget. $1 million of the increase is marked for salary raises, $500,000 is for building repair, while $2 million is for six-day service during the school year (a major demand of the campaign).

This is not close to the total amount that they are demanding, but it is a gain.

The fact that the library workers have a union is no doubt key to their success so far. And they worked hard to make this happen through grassroots campaigning over nine months. They gathered over 5,000 petitions in favor of the funding increase, made hundred of phone calls, and filled city budget hearings, keeping the pressure on the administration.

The union demand for a $15 million increase is far from unrealistic. The city continually finds more money to give to the police department, which is not making residents any safer. The administration increased the police budget by $18 million in 2019 to $709 million. It is being raised by $54 million in fiscal year 2020. Just like in New Orleans and in cities across the country, the Philadelphia police get a bigger share of the budget than any other sector of city government. Each library branch currently gets only $400 for community programs.

Whereas increasingly-militarized police forces terrorize people of color as well as working class whites, public libraries play a vital role in our communities.

Libraries provide children and youth with educational and fun activities. Across the country, 59% of libraries help patrons find health insurance resources and 18% bring in healthcare providers for free screenings, according to the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Immigrant communities rely on libraries for language learning services. Working class people use library computers to look for work. Libraries provide people with gathering places. Libraries preserve local history. In short, they are one of the few truly communal resources that we have in a capitalist society where everything is increasingly-privatized and run in the interest of the rich. We have good reason to fight for public libraries and to support the workers who make them run!

South Philadelphia librarian Abbe Klebanoff, a member of AFSCME District Council 47 Local 2186 puts it best, “When libraries are closed, when libraries are short-staffed and underfunded, we can not do our job and be there for those in our community who need us most.”