Petra Roberts, assistant director for libraries, explained that relief staff were not on zero-hours contracts but were “casual workers” taken from a pool of former employees who had accepted voluntary redundancy and then sought more flexible working arrangement.
“It means they don’t have to accept certain hours,” she said, arguing that this had also helped ease the strain caused by staff sickness or other absences.
However, Rebus claimed that the worker’s payroll in fact describes them as “zero-hours” employees. “I’m happy to go with that,” he said.
Unison has put pressure on the Town Hall over its restructuring of libraries ever since the strategy was first announced.
The council cut 19 jobs in 2023 in a bid to prevent establishments from closing down, and since then has made 48 redundancies, either voluntary or compulsory, but 27 of these experienced employees have joined the relief pool.
This required the council waiving its policy of making those given voluntary redundancy wait one year before they could return to work for the council.
Unison Rep Nick Panteli said: “Imagine paying someone to leave, only to hire them back almost immediately on less favourable terms.
“It’s not just inefficient. To some extent, it represents public funds that could have been better spent.”
Town Hall bosses had previously floated the option of closing one library in the borough, though this has not taken place and faced stiff resistance from Unison.
Updating the council on its strategy, Hackney’s libraries team stated that “staff now receive tailored training and participate in new quarterly staff development days, team building and sharing best practice”.
The borough’s strategic director for regeneration Suzanne Johnson said this training was available to temporary workers, who were now paid the equivalent of a library assistant “in a previous establishment”.
There are now “higher paid roles, more training, skills development, progression routes for frontline staff”, while the restructure has allowed the council to keep all its libraries open with the same operating hours, the report stated.
A user survey revealed 99 per cent rated library services ‘excellent’ or ‘good’, though only 25 per cent had so far responded.
