Lorain/Elyria, OH
Lorain library, workers’ union discuss potential cuts
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AVON — The Lorain Public Library union staff soundly rejected a memorandum of understanding Friday night offered to them by the library system.
Union members shot down the proposal 58-16, but the union and library still have plenty of time to negotiate before February, when the memorandum would have gone into effect.
The proposal, which was offered as a way to secure some library jobs, was rejected because union members couldn’t figure out how it was different than not having a proposal at all, said Linda Meredith, Service Employees International Union Local 1199 president.
“They were still going to lay off people,” she said.
The library is trying to make up for a $1.1 million shortfall from the state’s Public Library Fund.
“While the library has now found the means to preserve 12 of the 32 positions originally slated for elimination, the Union Leadership Board believes there is still the means to reduce that number even further,” Meredith said in a letter she gave to the library’s board Thursday night.
Library Executive Director Joanne Eldridge said she could not publicly discuss what the memorandum of understanding would do because contract negotiations are private. She confirmed it would save some jobs, but would not say which ones. What the union was voting on Friday was actually a counterproposal offered by the library system after the union countered the library’s original offer.
Eldridge has previously said the board of trustees is asking the union to make changes to hours, staffing, bonuses and benefits. The union includes librarians, maintenance workers and clerical staff.
The memorandum would not go into effect until February, which gives both sides time to ask more questions and deliberate.
“We’re not in any big hurry,” Eldridge said. “We’re still trying to talk to the union. It’s in both of our best interest to sit down and discuss.”
Officials have said they intend to reduce the number of hours branches stay open and will close a few branches at least one day a week.
The union’s current contract doesn’t expire until March 31, 2011.
Contact Alicia Castelli at 329-7144 or acastelli@chroniclet.com.
Contact Adam Wright at 329-7155 or awright@chroniclet.com.
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This is a perfect example of how unions are killing this country.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see:
We have “X” amount of money…
We have “X” amount in expenditures…
Either we lay off people or we’re not going to make it…
Let’s ask the union if it’s ok…
All they (the union) care about is their pockets…nothing more.
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It’s serialized war (war without end) instituted by the “military-industrial complex” and the bankers that Eisenhower warned us about 3 times and JFK warned us about twice that are SAPPING THE VITALITY out of the economies of the Western World.
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Your exposure to the News comes from either the mainstream news media, Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Sean hannity or Amy Goodman, Al Franken, Kristine Craft
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CIA Director, William E. Colby testified in the 1970s before a US Senate Committee head by Senator Frank Church that ANYONE of ANY SIGNIFICANCE in the NEWS MEDIA is wholly owned by the CIA.
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That’s quite a powerful statement… is it true?
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Remember Actor Jim Carey in the movie, “The Truman Show” where the protagonist’s whole reality throughout his entire life was actually a TV Show watched by millions of people.
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Eisenhower, JFK, William E Colby… where are their assertions EVEN CONFIGURED in our involvement in World Affairs?…
Even if it is to dismiss what those 3 said…where does that type of discussion take place?
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Benjamin Disraeli, Henry Ford, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Henry Morgenthau, Eisenhower, JFK and as late as 1997, Jack Straw spoke of a “shadow government” controlling all of the Western Democracies.
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Do you know why Tony Blair fired jack Straw?
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So as opposed to the Unions being a “perfect example” of how this country is being killed… you YOURSELF, Raven are a perfect example of how easily a bunch of sheep can be manipulated by Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glen Beck and Rupert Murdoch.
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The Raven says:
December 19, 2009 at 4:52 pm
“This is a perfect example of how unions are killing this country.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see:
We have “X” amount of money…
We have “X” amount in expenditures…
Either we lay off people or we’re not going to make it…
Let’s ask the union if it’s ok…
All they (the union) care about is their pockets…nothing more.”
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“All they (the union) care about is their pockets…nothing more.”
If by “they” you are referring to the several dozen working class people who are slated to those their positions, then I would urge you to reconsider your opinion. We are not talking about bureaucrats and fat cats here, and we are not talking about people with over-inflated salaries making unreasonable demands on an over-taxed system. The employees in question provide a very valuable service to the community and are as frightened by the current economic climate as every reasonble common person should be.
I can safely assert that the members of the Service Employees International Union Local 1199 are merely looking for some transparency and leadership from their current administration. It is my opinion that the library has been less than forthcoming about the financial situation being faced by the system and is placing an unreasonable amount of burden upon the non-adminstrative employees. If you are actually concerned about pockets being lined, I think your suspicions are definitely being misplaced.
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PP spare us your drivel, you have yet to prove anything at all. but then again it has waffeled from pizza to politics to old movies and obscure quotes - blah blah blah —–(@_@) look boy deep into my eyes - you have nothing
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Why the heck would a public library have union employees!? I never knew that!! HOW DISGUSTING that tax paying citizens have to pay union wages and benefits to enjoy the service of books for our children and education materials for all of us! Well, that explains why most library workers I’ve encountered are a bunch of grumpy people who snarl when you ask for their help!
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It’s only “drivel” if what I say is actually “untrue”… and YOU YOURSELF were one of the people who thought they were being “clever” with me ONLY TO THEN flee from the words in your own postings.
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I say there is $10 million as part of the Unions’ share of 37.5% of multiple IRS CID Rewards.
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Am I being truthful?
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The first step in establishing the truthfulness/veracity of my claim is to determine if indeed a “tax liability” exists attendant to “undeclared income”
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endthecorruption already agreed that the “commercial insurance” scam exists on the massive scale that I maintained that it did.
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You yourself fled from verifying that “massive scope” by calling your own auto insurer OR EVEN verifying through aquaintances whose friends/children/cousins/nieces deliver pizzas.
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Again… one takes “baby steps”… one first establishes the predicate for liability - then one moves forward from there.
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Your answer did not meet the standard of sufficiency that I required, Big Mackey.
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But for the benefit of gastrognome… I’ll ask you to confirm what endthecorruption already confirmed…
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Was I being untruthful when I replied to Elyria Police Officer, Dan Sumpter’s question about the massive nature of this insurance fraud and its attendant tax liability.
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In front of gastrognome, you will flee once more just as you fled from answering candidly in the past.
Big Mackey says:
December 20, 2009 at 2:50 am
“PP spare us your drivel, you have yet to prove anything at all. but then again it has waffeled from pizza to politics to old movies and obscure quotes - blah blah blah —–(@_@) look boy deep into my eyes - you have nothing”
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Hello gastrognome,
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I will not allow the library staffs to lose their jobs.
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I will inform the Elyria, Grafton and North Ridgeville
Libray Staffs EXACTLY what they must do to save their jobs in perpetuity.
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It’s totally lawful, non-violent and constitutionally-complaint conduct.
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You all go in groups of 8 to 10 people to a subset of Lorain County High School Basketball Games and in that BRIEF MOMENT OF SILENCE subsequent to the singing of the US National Anthem you all call out in unison the Police Radio Code, “10-5″ and then all suffix that with the utterance of “seven (7) magic words”.
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When a certain subset of the political elite find out what occurred in Lorain County aand that you all FULLY INTEND to do the same at NEXT FRIDAY’S High School Basketball Games… they will fold faster than cheap pieces of lawn furniture…
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…they’ll soil their panties faster than Big Mackey in this “comments section”.
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What they’ll fear is 50 people calling it out at the next set of basketball games and 250 people doing the same at games after that.
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In the words of Hamlet…”something is [indeed] rotten in Denmark”.
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You all now become the guardians of a “festering sore” on the heel of Achilles.
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Achilles is impervious to the slings and arrows that others may heap upon him… but the very instant that he starts getting smart-alecky as he gazes down upon you…
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…you all just silently look back up at him with “soulful eyes” and a “solemn face” and poke your finger directly in that festering sore.
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Achilles will never mess with you all again..
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I guarantee it.
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Your jobs will be funded in perpetuity - you’ll never ever have to worry about something like this ever happening again
gastrognome says:
December 19, 2009 at 11:35 pm
“All they (the union) care about is their pockets…nothing more.”
If by “they” you are referring to the several dozen working class people who are slated to those their positions, then I would urge you to reconsider your opinion. We are not talking about bureaucrats and fat cats here, and we are not talking about people with over-inflated salaries making unreasonable demands on an over-taxed system. The employees in question provide a very valuable service to the community and are as frightened by the current economic climate as every reasonble common person should be.
I can safely assert that the members of the Service Employees International Union Local 1199 are merely looking for some transparency and leadership from their current administration. It is my opinion that the library has been less than forthcoming about the financial situation being faced by the system and is placing an unreasonable amount of burden upon the non-adminstrative employees. If you are actually concerned about pockets being lined, I think your suspicions are definitely being misplaced.
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gastrognome…
That is a typical truly UNION response!!!
The EMPLOYER is always wrong in the eyes of the union.
If the union cannot see that we’re ALL in financial trouble, and by ALL I mean employees, employers, business and government, then either they’re stupid or greedy.
The fire union in this city made concessions, so did the police union as well as the nurses at Community.
They care about their job as well as the service they provide.
Either some of the people at the library have to go, or it shuts down…
ANY QUESTIONS???
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The library provides so much to the people that use it. Education for your children, job resources, internet access for those that don’t have it.
Should the employees take a less, yes. Many people are out of work or their salaries are being cut in the private sector . At the same time communities will have to decide for themselves the value of their library and raise money or provide local taxes for it.
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Forget about talking to the union. They can’t seem to be smart enough to know that there is no extra money, and that layoffs are inevitable. Get rid of all those crybaby union members. There are plenty of unemployed people around here who will be glad to have some of those jobs.
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So now The Raven moves from “the general” to “the specific”…
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…parroting Rush Limbaugh/Glen Beck/Sean Hannity criticisms THAT THE unions killing the entire country to a SPECIFIC criticism of the local union.
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Perhaps this Library Union should go to their shelf and pick up the memoirs of a CIA Director and turn to the 1 1/2 pages in that book where he speaks ( in a “partial whitewash”) of the military-industrial complex getting an ally of the US to murder 30+ US Servicemen.
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The CIA Director isn’t telling the whole truth (partial whitewash) but this “mass murder” was done sneakily behind his back during a covert CIA Operation.
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The families of these murder victims are still demanding justice - and for the supposedly umpteen Congressional Investigations saying this was an “accident”… not one of the investigations had the following people testify before the US Congress:
1) The CIA Director
2) Deputy Director of the CIA
3) NSA Director(s) - multiple individuals
4) Chief Legal Counsel for the Court of Inquiry..
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…and it’s a GOOD REASON they were not called to testify - they were all sandbagged themselves and OPENLY TOLD anyone who asked that all he electronics intelligence(ELINT) and signals intelleigence(SIGINT) established “murder”.
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You know…sheep like the Raven tearfully listen to that recorded 1970s editorial by Canadian Gordon Sinclair( where “America the Beautiful” plays during the monologue)…
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“you talk about Japanes technocrathhy- you get “radios”…. you talk about German technocrathhy- you get “automobiles”… you talk about American technocrathhy - you get men on the moon not once but several timethhzzz….
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…you talk about “scandalthhzzz” - the Americanthhzz put theirs in the store front window for everyone to look at” ( a reference to Nixon/Watergate).
…and now the Red Cross is broke…when America recovers… and it will reocver…who could blame America if they said “to hell with the rest of the world”
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and you get easily-manipulated sheep like The Raven terfully crying out in patriotic angst…”damn thhtraight, Gordon Thhinclair!…to hell with the rethhst of the world”.
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That editorial was played on US Radio during the height of the coverup of the murder of 30+ US Servicemen…
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multiple generations/sessions of Congress have covered up what everyone knew to be murder (Adlai Stevenson, Hickenlooper and James Traficant spoke out)
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..multiple US Presidents have covered up wht they knew to be “murder” - although Jimmy Carter used the threat of “presidential exposure” to arm-twist a little “foreign policy blackmail”
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multiple generations of the US News Media and Entertainment Media covered up what they knew to be murder
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That’s why no one wanted the following people to testify… because they all stated they would testify truthfully if placed under oath.
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1) The CIA Director
2) Deputy Director of the CIA
3) NSA Director(s) - multiple individuals
4) Chief Legal Counsel for the Court of Inquiry..
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The Raven is one of the easily-manipulated sheep programmed to believe the “unions” are the “bad guys” when he is so willing to hand trillions over to the “military-industrial complex” that Eisenhower 3 times warned us about…that JFK twice said was “evil”.
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gastrognome…look at my post above where I talk about how to employ the “Police Radio Code”10-5″… the Libraries will forever have all the money they need.
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gastrognome…easily-manipulated sheep like The Raven in WWII Nazi Germany were so duped into “hatred” that they ended up angrily hating/murdering 6 million Jewish innocents and turning their human skins into lampshades.
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The Raven is a very useful dupe for the “military-industrialcomplex”…. but he is ALSO a very useful asset for you in the Unions also… because the News Media can never allow themselves to be forced to admit that generations of them have all conspired to commit what they all knew to be murder AS EVIDENCEDBY the statements of these people who were in a position to know the truth…
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1) The CIA Director
2) Deputy Director of the CIA
3) NSA Director(s) - multiple individuals
4) Chief Legal Counsel for the Court of Inquiry..
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The Raven says:
December 20, 2009 at 9:33 am
“gastrognome…
That is a typical truly UNION response!!!
The EMPLOYER is always wrong in the eyes of the union.
If the union cannot see that we’re ALL in financial trouble, and by ALL I mean employees, employers, business and government, then either they’re stupid or greedy.
The fire union in this city made concessions, so did the police union as well as the nurses at Community.
They care about their job as well as the service they provide.
Either some of the people at the library have to go, or it shuts down…
ANY QUESTIONS??? “
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I’m confused by Juan Mendoza’s statement. Which, exactly, of the 32 positions being CUT would you like?
People responding to this post have no idea that these layoffs are a FIRST resort, not a LAST resort. Learn a few facts, and then come back and respond.
The people being laid off are the ones who used to conduct your storytimes, help your children with their homework, sit with you and answer questions as you were using computers to fill out job applications or unemployment forms. People who were struggling to begin with. What exactly are they lining their pockets with? Perhaps they are just hoping they can feed their families for a little longer….
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from a friend who works at the Lorain library:
“This was not written by me, but by a coworker of ours who expresses our stance - and our frustrations - with this situation:
The library has a financial shortfall. This is true. They have cut hours and benefits from their exempt staff. This is true. Three staff lost 8 hours and family benefits. Three. Administration voted to freeze their wages. This is true. NONE of them have been laid off. At this point it was rumored there were 20 lay offs in the works for union employees. Then the Avon levies failed which meant there would be no new Avon library. The next day the lay off number was 32. It remained this number with no offer of cut hours or days until the next board meeting when it became public knowledge that the main library would be laying off 32 people while continuing to use 1 million dollars for Main library renovations. The board quickly cut the renovation funding in half. My personal assumption was that this was to offset the large number of layoffs. It didn’t.They did cut days and hours but somehow this didn’t even save one person. We learned that there would still be 32 lay offs unless we agreed to some cutbacks. They included hour cuts, family insurance loss for those that DID cut their hours, packages for early retirement with the majority of these people only in there late 40’s and 50’s, wage freezes, removal of healthcare bonuses and voluntary lay offs. This would reduce the number to twenty. Hmmmm. The original number. So if the newspapers say we are being selfish I have to assume they don’t have the facts. The LPLS wants us to fund the shortfall. I can’t remodel my kitchen right now because I have had cutbacks in our money coming in due to this recession. I couldn’t remodel my toaster. I don’t spend money on paint when I have to have heat and food. I can’t pull my kid out of school so I can get a new HD TV. 500,000 dollars cut from renovations, hours and days cut but not ONE union employee saved from this. You do the math.”
http://purplepeoplepower.posterous.com/
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Yeah, heaven forbid that mere workers have any recourse to the wims of their betters. That’s not the American way.
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