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Post cards from the public call for action on pay equity after 10 years of unkept promises

VICTORIA—Municipal councillors from Greater Victoria are being served with overdue slips from local library users.

But it isn’t books that are overdue: it’s an unkept promise, made more than a decade ago by Victoria politicians, for library workers to achieve pay equity with other civic employees doing work of equal value.

The union says that library users have embraced the local’s campaign with enthusiasm.

We have already delivered 526 signed postcards from members of the public to municipal politicians less than a week after starting the campaign,” says CUPE 410 president Ed Seedhouse. “Things are going really quite well.”

The post cards call on municipal councillors to recognize the value of the services library workers provide and pay them the same rates as other municipal workers.

Please give the bargaining committee of the Greater Victoria Labour Relations Association a mandate to negotiate pay equity,” the cards say.

Last month, the union’s members voted 90 per cent in favour of strike action, if necessary, to achieve a fair collective agreement. Pay equity is one of the local’s top bargaining issues.

CUPE 410 represents 220 library workers in the GVPL system at branches in Victoria, Saanich, Central Saanich, Oak Bay, Esquimalt, Colwood, Langford, Metchosin and View Royal.

For more information, visit www.overduepromise.ca