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Mill Hill Depot and Outsourcing

UNISON has made strong approaches to the Council and to the Barnet Group to stop plans to hand over the staff and running of the service to the Barnet Group. Unified Pay was brought in to harmonise terms and conditions for all council staff but a TUPE transfer will drive a coach and horses through this. We also believe there are enough problems to sort out at the depot without the added pressure of preparing for a transfer. They are:

• Health and Safety
• Depot move
• Unified Pay

Each of these issues reveals a minefield of other problems. A leaflet has been produced for all our depot workers titled: “We are not the rubbish we collect”.

2016-street-scene-outsourcing-a3-booklet-v2

Don’t take our jobs

Barnet UNISON has sent the letter below to the following Voluntary Organisations who are bidding to take over our Libraries.

NW7 HUB

Inclusion Barnet

Mind in Barnet

Kisharon

The Hope of Childs Hill

TES Youth.

 

Dear Voluntary Organisation

I am writing to you on behalf of UNISON members working in Barnet Libraries. I have had the honour of representing this workforce for a long time and they have faced incredible adversity in terms of ongoing cuts to Library services in all that time. In spite of that, earlier this year they received a 97% customer satisfaction rating which I think demonstrates their high level of professionalism and their unquenching love for Libraries.

I understand that you and a number of voluntary organisations are bidding to run one of the four Partnership Libraries and this is why I am writing to you.

My request is a simple one.

Please do not bid.

I do not know if you are aware but currently 46% of Library staff are facing the sack. They are being sacked because the Council is relying on volunteers provided by you to take over four Libraries. My members have their own lives, families and caring responsibilities. They too need to work to live and they have worked hard to ensure they provide a high quality Barnet Library service.

If you are under the belief that the Council is unable to keep the Libraries open, and volunteers are the next best thing to at least keep them open, then please read on.

Below are the Agency/Consultancy figures for the last four years.

• £12,526,943
• £13,775,546
• £15,538,090
• £17,907,052

In the first two quarters of this financial year Barnet Council spent £9.3 million which, if it continues at this rate, will bring the total spend for this year to over £20 million on Consultants/Agency.

It is important you know that instead of spending money on front line Library services the Council spent almost £0.5 million on press officers.

Finally, it is hard to believe, but Barnet Council will have spent over £6 million on the project to destroy the Library service and made a donation of £500,000 to the RAF Museum for which it has no responsibility. The £6million is predicated on volunteers taking our members’ jobs and running four shell Libraries.

Anti-social behaviour

I do not believe your organisation is aware of the number of difficult and dangerous situations that Barnet library staff have to deal with. During the last 7 months Barnet UNISON has received 4 reports of physical assaults (2 on staff and 2 on members of the public) in Libraries. There were also 27 reports of aggressive behaviour and verbal abuse. The victims being equally divided amongst staff and public. Not all incidents are reported to UNISON so the real figures are likely to be higher.

Situations our colleagues have to deal with include preventing fights between members of the public, dealing with people under the influence of alcohol and drugs,  library users viewing pornography on computers, Members of the public urinating and defecating on library furniture and floors, racial and homophobic abuse, and threats of sexual assault.

I want to be very clear that our members welcome the support of volunteers as a supplement to publically running the Library service. We welcome the commitment of volunteers to try to keep the Library Service open. However, the proposal by Barnet Council undermines the role of the ‘volunteer’ by using them to take our members’ jobs and effective close publicly funded Libraries.

This is why I am writing to you, to ask that your organisation does not pursue the partnership libraries proposals and instead joins with our members and supporters in the Save Barnet Libraries campaign to keep our Libraries fully funded and staffed by paid employees. I would welcome an opportunity to meet with representatives of your organisation to discuss the issues contained within this letter.

Yours sincerely

John Burgess

Branch Secretary

Barnet UNISON

 

Support Barnet UNISON Library workers

Dear Barnet UNISON Library workers

First of all I want to pay tribute to Hugh Jordan and those local reps and activists who have organised and taken part in strike action in defence of staff and the Barnet Library Service. For the past two years they have been under unacceptable pressure due to the proposed outsourcing and destruction of the Library Service. I truly believe the draconian cuts to the Library Service would have been far worse and imposed far quicker if they and our members had not been on strike and taken other actions. » Read more

I am a Library Customer Service Assistant in Barnet Libraries, and before I that was a Library and Information Officer and before that  a Library Assistant.  I have worked for Barnet for 35 years and hoped to retire in three years’ time.  I know I will get redundancy money if I lose my job but it will not be able to cover my expenses for long. Personal circumstance meant that I had to give up my home and now I rent. Without a regular income I am not sure I will be able to cover my living expenses. I don’t splash out on a lot of luxuries but after working all my life I think I deserve more than just to exist.  I have spent my working life helping people in libraries. I have read stories to toddlers and then helped them with their homework when they got older.  One of the children I used to do this for came to work in Libraries with me a few years ago, before she got a job as a librarian in another part of London.   I know I have to retire sometime but I don’t want to be forced into giving up work. It should be my decision. It is bad enough that the Council want to hand our libraries over to private companies, but charities and residents groups should know better.

* Identities have been changed to protect the striker

Please, please, voluntary groups, please don’t take over our libraries. I don’t understand why you want to do this. I thought charities were all about doing good for people.  Taking jobs away is not what you should be doing. Also what about the people who use the libraries, they need them more than just 15 hours a week. I have only been working in my library for 2 years but I really like it. Working here much better than my old shop job which I had for a year after leaving school.  I have learned so much and feel much happier with myself. I used to be really shy at school but I need to talk to different types of customer now and they really need my help so I can’t be shy. I really don’t want to lose my job, I know it can be hard sometimes when someone shouts and swears at you, but most people are nice.

* Identities have been changed to protect the striker

I used to be a librarian but lost my professional post in the last restructure.  It has been difficult readjusting to the Library Customer Service Officer role, but I still am able to utilise my skills and knowledge and this has made the transition easier.  I was a victim of the Council’s lack of respect for Librarianship when the number of professional librarian posts were cut in 2013. It now appears I am to be a victim again when library staff are replaced with volunteers.  I have given nearly thirty years’ service to public libraries, most of it in Barnet.  I am very worried that if I am made redundant that I will not find it easy to get other employment as I am in my late 50’s.  I think those considering running a Partnership library really ought to reconsider. I realise my objections may be dismissed by some as just trying to protect my own interests, but experience tells me that Voluntary organisations are not equipped to run an efficient library.

* Identities have been changed to protect the striker

It worries’ me that libraries are going to be handed over to voluntary organisations to run. Please don’t misunderstand me, I think these do really useful work but they should concentrate on what they were set up for.  Running a library is not a simple matter of just lending books. A lot of organisation is needed to manage stock.  Much of what libraries do now is IT based and we also run a lot of events and activities for adults and children.  There are also times when library staff have to deal with very difficult situations and often we get verbal abuse and worse from customers. I just don’t think the charities and other groups thinking of taking over the libraries realise just how difficult it is.  They probably mean well but It’s seems they think that anyone can just walk in off the street and be a librarian, library manager or a library customer service officer. That’s just not true.

I have been working in Barnet Libraries since I was a teenager and I am now in my mid-thirties. I have children at primary school. It can be hard looking after my kids and working but I do not want to get the sack. It is not just because we have a mortgage to pay and bringing up kids is expensive, but I really love my job. I have learned a lot working in Barnet libraries and love helping people. Some of the elderly people I help sometime talk to no one else all day. What is going to happen to them when the libraries change?

 

* Identities have been changed to protect the striker

» Read more

No to closures
No to sackings
No to staffless Libraries

Barnet UNISON Library workers are taking strike action this Saturday 12 November outside Hendon Library from 9 – 12 noon

Please try to come down to the picket line to offer support and solidarity. You can send messages of solidarity to contactus@barnetunison.org.uk

Some Facts:

• 50.3 Full Time Equivalent Posts to go (approx. 70 staff). Workers to be informed that they will lose their jobs in the weeks leading up to Christmas.
• Building work to reduce library space by 15% to 90% resulting in less stock, study and activities space.
• Introduction of technology that is being used to replace staffed opening hours. Library staff will be on site only 30% of planned opening hours.
• Four Libraries to closed and re-opened by volunteers.

For details how to find Hendon Library click on this link  https://www.barnet.gov.uk/citizen-home/libraries/find-yo

ur-local-library/hendon.html