Friday: 6/27/2008 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm, Anaheim Convention Center 203A
Managers Who Have the ‘Union Advantage’
Presented by: ALA•APA – the organization for the advancement of library employees
Speakers:
Tom Galante, Director, Queens Borough Public Library
Susan Veltfort, President, Local 1857, WSCCCE, AFSCME, AFL-CIO, King County Library System (WA)
John Buschman, Associate University Librarian, Georgetown University Library (DC)
I expected this session to contain more practical information and advice about working in unionized library situations. As it turned out, it wasn’t so much practical information but, rather, just library people talking about their experiences working in unionized environments. Speaking to other attendees as we filtered out of the session, I found I wasn’t alone in my expectation that this would have been a more ‘tips and advice’ type session.
It was very clearly a “pro union” group – a union president and two library administrators. The two administrators both praised the fact that they work with a staff union, saying that the union structure gives them tools that actually make their jobs much easier.
The speakers all represented libraries and library systems well beyond the scope of SPPL – truly multiple locations, hundreds of employees, clear and definite divisions between staffing layers (nonprofessional, professional, management, etc.). Larger, more divided library situations clearly present different challenges than those that SPPL faces.
Despite the lack of practical tips and advice, there were more general ideas and philosophies expressed in this session that, while not huge revelations to me, were nice to hear expressed in a session like this, by people who currently work in healthy and constructive unionized workplaces.
Basically, the library can’t provide quality service unless library staff are truly happy doing the work they do. I think that the degree to which someone enjoys their job is readily apparent to people they encounter while doing it, particularly in a service oriented business, such as ours.
People see through forced pleasantness – it should come naturally from a true desire on the part of the employee to be doing what they do. If an employee is unhappy in their environment, be it due to the physical workspace, work load or type of work performed, it is up to them to raise the issue and work toward a resolution. Knowing that people don’t always look out for their own well being, it is up to a manager to always be on the lookout for signs of unhappiness and to raise the issue with the employee – if the employee is not raising it themselves - before their unhappiness begins to impact the quality of service, or the happiness of their coworkers.
Happiness isn’t generally about “getting more” but, rather, in feeling valued in and fulfilled by the work you do.
Probably the most important factor in an employee’s happiness is healthy communication in the workplace. Healthy communication goes in both directions – staff to management and management to staff. The people on this panel all agreed that any issue or problem in the workplace – real or perceived – should be addressed promptly and directly and not be left to fester and grow. They also stressed that this communication should not be cast in the light of “union” vs. “management” but, rather, "just talking" - a comfortable discussion. The workplace is a place of working with people, not divisions of types of people.
They said – “pick up the phone, schedule an appointment - do whatever it takes to clear the air and deal with issues before things conflate into more ‘serious’ issues” that then need to involve more formal processes (grievance or disciplinary). Establish “meet and discuss” meetings - pre-grievance sessions to discuss issues with appropriate parties in hopes of resolving issues before they are truly problems. Panelists said that most issues they’ve been confronted with have been easily resolved simply through talking about them, rather than approaching the issues as “us vs. them” confrontations.
Management’s #1 job: relationship building.
Ultimately, the panel said, neither staff nor management can lose sight of the fact that we all have a job to do. Work is work and, ultimately, we just have to do what needs to be done. At times, feelings may be hurt, staff and management may be at opposite ends of an issue but, ultimately, there is a job to do. As one of the panelists said, “sometimes, you just have to suck it up and do your job.”
In summary, though this session was not quite what I expected it to be, it was ultimately a nice affirmation of my basic philosophies of workplace communication and healthy relationship building.
