Multnomah County Library staffers this week have started learning which positions are being eliminated as layoffs loom at the heavily used library system.
The decision to cut staff, announced last month, has sent fears and rumors through the ranks, with some workers decrying what they consider a lack of transparency from management.
The library says the cutbacks are driven by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which has caused its branches to remain closed to the public since March. The library has ramped up its online and telephonic services and launched curbside pickup.
Dozens of layoffs could happen throughout the library system, but the final number will depend on a variety of factors, such as how many employees decide by Aug. 22 to take voluntary early retirement and how many longtime staffers whose positions are being eliminated end up “bumping” less-senior staffers out of their continuing positions, based on union seniority rules.
The library has an approved $92.2 million fiscal-year 2021 budget that accounts for the current staffing level, but library director Vailey Oehlke has said she cannot justify continuing to keep some workers on paid administrative leave.
“The library must honor its obligation to the public that funds the library by acting as a thoughtful and transparent steward of public resources,” Oehlke said in a July statement.
She added: “I reached the difficult conclusion that the library cannot pay a significant portion of its workforce indefinitely for work they are not able to do during the pandemic.”
Administrative leave accounted for about 33% of recorded employee time between March 1 and July 15, the library told The Oregonian/OregonLive. That percentage is now down to around 13% -- “roughly equivalent to 42.75 full-time positions.”
Oehlke said the pending cutbacks are primarily about lack of space in its buildings, due to health-safety mandates that require physical distancing.
The Multnomah County Central Library in May, without its usual bustle of people. The library system is planning layoffs. (Dave Killen/The Oregonian)Dave Killen
“About half of library staff have jobs that require in-person work, such as physically moving library materials,” she said. “There isn’t enough room inside library buildings to accommodate everyone in the current [pandemic] era.”
Many staffers suspect that physical-distancing constraints in library buildings aren’t the only reason for the impending layoffs.
They argue that some of the positions that are being eliminated, such as youth librarians and the digital-inclusion librarian, are well-suited to remote working.
And a shop steward, who asked to not be named in print for fear of facing discipline, said the union wants the library to institute “shift schedules” to allow more people to work safely in the libraries but that the library’s leadership “seems to not want to do it.”
The shop steward also insisted that library management is resisting remote-service recommendations from staff that would allow more people to successfully work from home.
A sampling of these ideas includes expanding virtual tutoring for job searching, GED studies, library databases and other subjects; sending priority physical items, such as books for resume writing, by mail; providing small-business technical support; and creating webpages for “parent homeschool support.”
No one at Local 88 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, which represents the library workers, could be reached to discuss the library’s planned staff reductions. Both Local 88 president Percy Winters Jr. and Oregon AFSCME representative Eben Pullman are out of the office this week.
Shawn Cunningham, the library’s director of communications and strategic initiatives, said the library will alter schedules if it makes sense for those who need to be in the buildings to do their work, but as things stand right now it’s “just not something that would alleviate the current conditions” and save jobs. He said the backlog of returned physical materials -- prompted by Gov. Kate Brown’s announcement of a state of emergergency in March in response to the coronavirus -- has diminished.
He added that, based on health-safety requirements, only so many appointments for curbside pick-up can be accommodated, limiting the checking out of physical materials to about 3,000 per day. When the libraries were open to the public, the system saw about 17,000 physical items checked out per day.
As for staffers who can do their work from home, he said that not all services that can be provided remotely are equal. Some are being used by library patrons in large numbers since the onset of the pandemic, others have been a disappointment.
“We’re working to figure out how we can best make use of virtual platforms,” Cunningham said.
While the library’s budget has been approved for 2020-21, Cunningham said he expects it to be modified “over the course of the year to reflect the new realities of operating during the pandemic.”
That likely means more money going to things like digital-content licensing and reshaping physical spaces in library buildings through protective equipment and new furniture layouts, he said.
Cunningham also said “some portion” of the budgeted monies probably will be held in reserve to help address the library’s structural deficit.
The library recently announced it was abandoning fines for late returns after determining that they do not improve return rates and they discourage from using the library the people who most benefit from its services. The library collected about $550,000 in overdue fines in fiscal year 2019.
While the library is reducing staff as the pandemic reshapes the library’s operation, it’s still hoping to dramatically increase its physical capacity for the longer term.
In June, Multnomah County’s board of commissioners referred to the November ballot a $387 million bond measure to renovate or build eight library buildings, including a “flagship” branch in the underserved eastern part of the county “similar in size to Central Library downtown.”
Correction: The original version of this article stated that children’s “virtual storytimes” since the pandemic began were less popular than the in-person storytimes, which have been suspended. In fact, the library says online engagement for storytimes has been similar to the in-person program.
-- Douglas Perry
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