Opponents of privatized management did achieve a victory elsewhere in California. The City Council of Stockton, along with the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors, rescinded an earlier plan to hire LSSI to run its libraries and stuck with local control. Meanwhile, a bill has been submitted to the state legislature that would require voter approval before a community could opt out of a county library system and hire a private contractor to run its library. However, even if this bill passes, it will be too late to change the results in Santa Clarita.

 

On the surface, this is a debate about how to run a library. In reality, it is more a proxy war for much larger issues. There is a battle of political philosophies raging across the land, and this time, not even the public library, once the domain of mild manners and quietude, is immune. On one side are those who believe in public works, public employees, nonprofits, workers' and union rights. On the other side are those who believe in private companies with nonunion employees, spurred to greater efficiency by the incentive of private profits.

 

A website, PrivatizationBeast.org, was launched to gather support to fight the city's plan. The site claims that some once free services will now require payment to access. Its sponsor is the Service Employees International Union. The Santa Clarita Library workers are part of the union. On the other side, LSSI CEO Frank Pezzanite was quoted last September in the New York Times, talking about "a lot of libraries," as saying, "Their policies are all about job security... You can go to a library for 35 years and never have to do anything and then have your retirement…You come to us, you're going to have to work." The contempt drips from his lips. In a letter to the Editor, American Library Association President Roberta Stevens objected to the "demonization" of library workers. The Santa Clarita Valley Signal, a local newspaper, weighed in in favor of the changes, saying, "Big Government is the problem, not the answer." The editorial continued, "LSSI's personnel costs are 15-percent lower than the county's," attributing this primarily to it having a private retirement plan, rather than having to pay in to the public employee retirement fund. Whether reduced benefits for library workers is a positive all depends upon your point of view.

 

The Santa Clarita Library story reminds us more of Wisconsin and the battle there over unionized public workers. It also reminds us of recent proposals to privatize Medicare. This is perhaps the biggest issue in America today, and it may well decide the results in the next national election. As Bob Dylan once said, in a very different time, "there's a battle outside and it's raging." That battle, like all of our other previous internecine wars, stayed outside the library walls. Quiet prevailed. This time, not even our libraries are safe.