LIbraries Outsourced - Union Busting

September 26, 2010
Anger as a Private Company Takes Over Libraries
By DAVID STREITFELD

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. — A private company in Maryland has taken over public libraries in ailing cities in California, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas, growing into the country’s fifth-largest library system.
Now the company, Library Systems & Services, has been hired for the first time to run a system in a relatively healthy city, setting off an intense and often acrimonious debate about the role of outsourcing in a ravaged economy.
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“There’s this American flag, apple pie thing about libraries,” said Frank A. Pezzanite, the outsourcing company’s chief executive. He has pledged to save $1 million a year in Santa Clarita, mainly by cutting overhead and replacing unionized employees. “Somehow they have been put in the category of a sacred organization.”
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“A lot of libraries are atrocious,” Mr. Pezzanite said. “Their policies are all about job security. That’s why the profession is nervous about us. You can go to a library for 35 years and never have to do anything and then have your retirement. We’re not running our company that way. You come to us, you’re going to have to work.”
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“Pensions crushed General Motors, and it is crushing the governments in California,” he said. While the company says it rehires many of the municipal librarians, they must be content with a 401(k) retirement fund and no pension.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/business/27libraries.html

In the hands of corporations, what will they be in 10, 20, 50 years?

The Cultural Revolution in China had as its primary goal the destruction of the existing class structure. Of course it went way beyond that but the point was to accomplish total control of the society by creating a new establishment.
Schools, prisons, libraries etc. are outsourced and the results are the destruction of middle class jobs and reinforcement of the ruling elite.

why the average person is blind to what is going on! I guess Chris Hedges explains it well.

I would have thought by now that the 'privatization-ubber-alles' Friemanites would have collapsed under the staggering weight of their own failed suppositions.

To a democratic society that actually has a concept of a common good of any kind this kind of group sociopathy should be abandoned.

Funny, I didn't think the idea of a Library was to profit. That's what fucking bookstores are for.

They are now PAYING a CORPORATION to run the libraries while they complain that the libraries are spending too much money. This fucking clown says he's going to save a million dollars a year by cutting pensions? Exactly how much money is he getting paid to cut those pensions? How much of that million that this guy is "saving" is going into his pocket?

The government is now hiring union busters. Fucking great.

You said it well.

It has always been the "Free Public Library".

"“Pensions crushed General Motors, and it is crushing the governments in California,” he said. While the company says it rehires many of the municipal librarians, they must be content with a 401(k) retirement fund and no pension."


Really? So, it wasn't the over-paid executives, CEOs, Board of trustees not doing anything that drove GM into problems?

It was GM that made the contract with the union, were they planning from the outset to reneg on the contract?
If so, isn't that criminal?

The town that hired these assholes should have their BoA run out on a rail.

The over-paid executives, CEOs, & Board of Trustees can be "RICH BEYOND THEIR WILDEST DREAMS"!!

The rest of us aren't allowed to have a life. We must lower our heads and accept our plight. It's our fault, after all. :banghead:

Pensions did not sink GM...unfunded pensions that GM was obligated to contribute to sank GM.

Now they won't have to burn books they just won't have them on the shelves.

iirc there's really only about 4 major publishers now.