A RECENT UNION vote of no-confidence in the director of the King County Library System, Bill Ptacek, has led to improved dialogue between labor and management at the system.

Local 1857, which represents 518 staff who work at 43 King County libraries, adopted the no-confidence vote because they believed Ptacek had mismanaged the library system to such a degree that the quality of service to the public was deteriorating, relationships with the community were worsening, public support was declining and library workers were unable to perform their duties effectively.

Ptacek’s first action in the wake of the vote was to request regular meetings with labor. Prior to that, the contract allowed for two labor-management meetings a year, for two hours, with a limited number of union members attending one hour on their own time. But the Local agreed to a memorandum of understanding that the meetings of labor and management would be held monthly, with the entire executive board of the Local attending on paid time.

The first order of business at the new meetings was to deal with the situation created by the “clustering” of libraries.

Clustering involves the reorganization of the library system so that two, three or more libraries are grouped under a single manager and workers rotate among the libraries in the cluster. Library staff believed the way clustering was managed had caused it to fail as an effective way to operate and had led to the character of the libraries becoming impersonal and less friendly.

Schedules were drawn up without consultation with staff, they said. As a result, some who had never worked Sundays were forced to do so whereas others who wanted to work Sundays were unable to do so. Others had to commute long distances and work inefficient and adverse shifts.

At the meeting with Ptacek, two committees were formed to deal with work locations and voluntary Sunday hours.

As a result, management and the union agreed that all members would return to the library where they were hired. Employees hired at a cluster may continue to work at more than one branch, but will have a consistent, set schedule and will not rotate randomly.

“We believe this will alleviate some of the chaos our members have been experiencing,” says Council 2 staff representative Diana Prengruber. “The new assignments will be made in January. We still have a lot of work to do, but are encouraged.”