After shutting down library branches on Mondays earlier this month, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Saturday that he planned to re-open them on Monday afternoons for most of the year and all day on Mondays when schools are not in session.
Emanuel had blamed the closures on the city’s budget woes and an impasse with the library employees’ union. Discussions with union leaders had not led to a resolution, but aides to the mayor said they had scrounged up about $2 million to staff the libraries on Mondays after all.
“I know our librarians are committed to providing the best services to the children and residents of Chicago, but unfortunately, their union leadership would not partner with us on a solution,” the mayor said in a statement.
In flusher times under former Mayor Richard M. Daley, the city built many new libraries across Chicago, but in his first year in office, Emanuel pondered closing some branches to help close a $636 million shortfall in 2012.
Instead, as part of a compromise with aldermen to win support for his 2012 budget plan, Emanuel vowed to close library branches only on Monday and Friday mornings during the school year. But the mayor and his aides had said that the arrangement, which aldermen approved unanimously in November, was contingent on reaching a deal with organized labor. More than 170 library employees were laid off under the 2012 budget plan.
Citing the dispute with labor, Emanuel kept the city’s more than 70 branches closed on Jan. 9. The libraries remained closed last Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
The Chicago News Cooperative first reported Friday that Emanuel would reverse his decision. The new schedule for Monday afternoons will go into effect on Feb. 6, city officials said.
The librarians’ union contract requires that full-time staff work 8-hour days, 5 days a week. To fill afternoon shifts on Mondays, the Emanuel administration will restore some positions that were eliminated by layoffs and create part-time spots, officials said.
The city also will save money by “shifting 25 library staff from Harold Washington Library to branches: reducing maintenance costs and services at the central location; leaving unfilled positions vacant; and reducing tuition reimbursement allotments,” according to the statement released Saturday.
The library employees are represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. AFSCME leader Henry Bayer said in a statement Saturday that Emanuel should rehire all laid-off library workers and open branches on Monday mornings also.
“Recalling some employees to work and restoring some library hours appears to be a step in the right direction, and a sign that the mayor is starting to appreciate the importance of libraries,” Bayer said.
Ald. Nicholas Sposato (36th) was one of many aldermen who balked at voting for Emanuel’s budget unless libraries remained open on Monday and Friday afternoons.
“I welcome this, and I would welcome [administration officials] to stop blaming the union,” he said. “Every time something comes up, it’s the union’s fault. It’s getting stale.”
Bayer recently called on Emanuel to reach out to business executives to pay for longer library hours. Bayer also rejected the suggestion from two aldermen — Edward Burke (14th Ward) and Brendan Reilly (42nd) — that the library employees give up their contractually guaranteed pay raises to avoid cuts.
The dispute with AFSCME over the libraries is one of many labor-relations headaches for the first-year mayor. The administration also faces the challenges this year of negotiating new contracts with teachers, police officers and firefighters.