EPA Library Restoration Pact Finalized
From Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility:
Beginning in 2006, EPA management began a stealth campaign of closing its regional and technical libraries, ultimately eliminating library service in 23 states and scattering invaluable scientific collections. In December 2007, Congress ordered EPA to re-open the libraries, but by this spring it became apparent that EPA would only grudgingly comply, restoring only minimal holdings in small spaces, in some cases no larger than the lavatories in the buildings they occupied.In February 2008, a Federal Labor Relations Board arbitrator sustained grievances filed by the American Federation of Government Employees Council 238 on behalf of all affected agency employees, finding that EPA acted “unilaterally without the benefit of” employee input in reducing access to seven of its ten regional libraries. The arbitrator ordered EPA to bargain with AFGE Council 238 on library conditions.
The two parties reached a Memorandum of Agreement on July 10, 2008 which became final today [August 11th].