Library union: no confidence in director

Union-represented workers in the King County Library System have cast an overwhelming vote of no confidence in the system's longtime director, Bill Ptacek.

Susan Veltfort, president of Washington State Council of County and City Employees Local 1857, said Tuesday the mail balloting was the result of a grass-roots effort by members upset about a new staffing plan that assigns workers to more than one library.

Ninety-two percent of the 388 librarians and library assistants voting said they don't have confidence in Ptacek's management or leadership, Veltfort said. The union represents 523 librarians and library assistants.

Veltfort said the union will lay out its concerns in detail when library trustees meet Tuesday. But at or near the top of the complaint list is Ptacek's policy of grouping libraries into "clusters." Each cluster has a single manager who can assign workers to any of its libraries.

Ptacek, who introduced the first clusters five years ago in southeastern King County and extended the system countywide this year, has said it will improve service and efficiency at a time when operating revenues aren't keeping pace with rising costs.

Library workers and many Friends of the Library groups around the county have opposed the program, saying it compromises the quality of service and weakens the bond between workers and patrons.

The union's no-confidence vote comes a month after Mercer Island Friends of the Library President James Bowen told the library board of trustees that patrons of 19 libraries have lost confidence in Ptacek.

Veltfort called clustering "the straw that broke the camel's back," and said the director showed little interest in what workers thought about the plan until they filed 30 grievances that claim it violates their labor contract.

"We would rather have sat down and had a labor-management meeting and worked things out," Veltfort said. "He doesn't want to work collaboratively, or hasn't seemed to want to."

Ptacek, who has run the nation's second-busiest library system since 1989, said he was concerned about the vote.

"A vote of no confidence, no matter how long you have been around, is not a good thing. We've got to do a better job of communicating," he said.

Ptacek and union leaders are scheduled to meet Thursday to discuss their differences.

"At this point in time, we have no agenda," Ptacek said. "That's part of the point. We're not going to prescribe anything; we're going to find out from their perspective what we need to work on. ... This is a time for us to listen. I think I'm in a listening mode more than anything."

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com