SEIU Makes a Monster Out of LSSI

By Mike — Mike Devlin

Looks like the SEIU 721 is jumping back into the Santa Clarita library fight, complete with a website and an awesome stop-motion monster video.

Behold, The Privatization Beast:

An embedded YouTube video appeared here in the original post. View the original — embeds are preserved as links in this archive.

Comments (21)

AndyFebruary 18, 2011 at 7:09 pm

My good friend made this. Sean Solomon at CalArts. Rad!

CCFebruary 19, 2011 at 3:09 pm

Not a Ferry Fan should use Sean’s services!

Coastal SageFebruary 18, 2011 at 9:52 pm

Good for Sean Solomon. Of course he’s not one of SEIU’s lawyers, organizers or political directors. At the beginning of the Santa Clarita library controversy, the SEIU’s representatives told all local groups to “stay out” of any litigation, because they wanted their lawyers to be lead counsel. So they did. Then, at the last minute, when it was time to fish or cut bait, in terms of the deadline to file litigation, the SEIU’s organizers, political directors and lawyers cut bait. SEIU’s rank and file members, including the County library employees, need to know their union wussed out and didn’t protect them. My spouse was forced to join SEIU in college, in order to keep a job already held when the job site was unionized. All the SEIU local did was collect dues, and accomplish nothing. If we were in New York, I would say the SEIU was a mobbed up shake-down operation, nothing more. But of course, this is California.

DonRickettsFebruary 22, 2011 at 7:51 am

Not exactly the whole story.

AwesomeSteve.comFebruary 19, 2011 at 7:21 am

Looks like Leni Riefenstahl’s influence has permeated the ivy covered walls at Cal Arts. May seem funny to the easily amused and mentally challenged, but the message is twisted and distorted . More dangerous than it is consequential to meaningful debate.

spineflower2February 19, 2011 at 9:20 am

“May seem funny to the easily amused and mentally challenged, but the message is twisted and distorted . More dangerous than it is consequential to meaningful debate.” Accordingly, I see a future for them at Fox News.

Fred ButlerFebruary 19, 2011 at 5:01 pm

Or MSNBC

NateFebruary 20, 2011 at 1:33 pm

Go read your bible and learn how to be like Jesus.

Library Card Carrying BookreaderFebruary 19, 2011 at 8:15 pm

More likely at Industrial Light and Magic with George Lucas, if history is a guide.

NateFebruary 20, 2011 at 1:34 pm

Petz that comment was extremely below you.

Lori RivasFebruary 19, 2011 at 1:16 pm

Comparing someone’s opinion on economic philosophy to the Nazis is a tad extreme, don’t you think? Not to mention disrespectful to those who fought and died by Hitler’s propaganda.

CCFebruary 19, 2011 at 3:11 pm

But Lori, that’s in the current talking points handbook.

AwesomeSteve.comFebruary 19, 2011 at 2:44 pm

Riefenstahl was a master of propaganda and the same disregard for the veracity of the truth and nuance for any underlying issues was extreme in the video. Meant to appeal to the emotions and play on underlying fear. No regrets.

Library Card Carrying BookreaderFebruary 19, 2011 at 3:12 pm

Not a bit vain either… Awesome? Really?

Lori RivasFebruary 19, 2011 at 6:54 pm

It’s a one minute video. How much detail and nuance and background can be given in one minute? I wonder how a Holocaust survivor would like your comparison.

NateFebruary 20, 2011 at 1:45 pm

Petz seriously low brow

SybilFebruary 19, 2011 at 2:46 pm

Privatization is becoming a reality in this declining economic climate. I can see many local governments turning to this as a “solution” for saving money in their budgets. Take a look at the hard cuts Governor Brown is making in California. He wants to eliminate all public library funding. In turn, this could cause local governments to raise taxes in order to subsidize the losses. If citizens in these locales don’t want to raise taxes (which I wouldn’t mind paying more of) in order to help fund vital and necessary public services, then cities and counties could decide to stop or decrease funding schools, libraries, police, fire departments, etc. and turn their sites towards private firms who appear to be more cost effective in how they run their “businesses.” Do we want public services like that to become a profit-making business? I don’t think so. My worry is that when a local government decides to hire a private company to run a public service, like a library, it becomes more about making a profit than providing a service to the community. We should all be very concerned about what privatization can mean for public libraries. I see it as diminishing the quality of service libraries can provide to a community. This means that fewer professionals will be employed who have the necessary education and background to run the library. It also means that collections budgets and programming budgets could be slashed in order to keep the “business” in the black on the financial statement. Not to mention what sort of collection development policy may be implemented by a private company. I can only imagine that any book challenged heavily by a community could end up getting banned from the library; thereby, censoring the collection and depriving the citizens the right to read differing viewpoints to form their own opinion on a multitude of subjects. I don’t want to think of a community library as a “business.” I want to think of it as a learning and educational destination, knowing I’ll be interacting with trained professionals and receiving a quality of service I can’t receive any where else. By taking the city, county, and state out of the public library, is taking out the “public” of a public library. It’s taking away the entire meaning of a publicly run service. By turning private, a public library is no longer a public entity, but a private one. We need to stop this from happening to more library systems. We need to maintain our public services through public funding.

KevinAFebruary 19, 2011 at 5:24 pm

I too am frightened about privatizing a “public” library. The library is our source of information from ALL view points. A private library must respond to “shareholders”–they only want increasing circulation statistics to “prove” they are a success. Laurie Ender said at the Canyon Country advisory meeting that the guideline for keeping a book is “if it checks out.” That’s where private vs public comes in. In a public library books are kept for research, reference, browsing and curiosity. And private, well, it becomes a bookstore: sell it or get rid of it. LSSI has already said they will have less than half the staff our libraries have now. This might be a good move in the for-profit sector, but it means poor service and employees who lack dedication in a public setting. (I don’t think many people are motivated by an on-the-spot gift card, as LSSI says it operates.) A public library has professional librarians, and the private LSSI will have 1 per library. So back to the book store mentality: they will have plenty of people who can look up a specific title, but you’ll be on your own for research. And the worst part of all is LSSI isn’t even accountable to us. We will never know how much they’re making in profit over what could have been spent on services.

NickelDimeFebruary 20, 2011 at 12:02 pm

It’s a shame that a private company can operate a library reasonably well and still earn enough money from the contract to turn a profit — all for less than the County. On the other hand, the City has not acknowledged the tradeoffs in making the switch. LSSI centralizes and shares the highly paid talent across state lines and many, many libraries. The rest of the employees are very low paid. In that vein, this is a rehash of Home Depot vs. Newhall Hardware. I’d feel better about the whole thing if 1) LSSI had some competition (just a matter of time IMO) and 2) the City stopped pretending we aren’t losing anything.

Library Card Carrying BookreaderFebruary 20, 2011 at 1:03 pm

But if we don’t lose something, then LSSI can’t turn a profit, and if it does give us less, then it is not actually doing it for less. We pay less; we get less. But we still do not know, more or less, what “less” means in regard to our libraries. Neither the City nor LSSI are talking, but they are pretending that although “the decision has been made” and the contract signed, it is somehow up to the Public Library Advisory Committee, in only six meetings, to transmute mud into tasty cakes in unlimited supply that we will all enjoy forevermore. If you believe that I can give you a good price on a magic wand. And you can pick up all the Harry Potter books you’ll need at the new Santa Clarita Library so you can learn how to use it. But first I must use it to turn a losing Lotto ticket into a billion dollar winner.

Carole LutnessFebruary 21, 2011 at 2:01 pm

The City Council got snookered into this shotgun wedding because their now retired attorney didn’t do his homework. There is still time to undo this disastrous decision. Jurisdictions around the state are taking heed and not falling for the LSSI Music Man like our City Council did. Please come to City Council tomorrow night (2/22 6pm) and ask the City to rescind it’s (illegal) contract and reconsider their decision, especially since Redevelopment money may be eliminated.