SHE MAY NOT look the part, but she’s a Teamster, too (Shuttertock).

Are you sure you want this fight?

At Tuesday’s meeting of the Huntington Beach City Council, the majority voted in favor of establishing a parent-guardian committee to review the “sex content” of books available in the city’s libraries AND look for private companies to run the city’s libraries.

In the latter case, the jobs and benefits of all the folks who work at the libraries are suddenly at stake. However, many of those are represented by a nice little social club called the Teamsters Union.

In case you aren’t familiar with the history of the labor movement in the United States, the Teamsters – originally folks that served as drivers for horse-drawn wagons – have a well-earned reputation as a bare-knuckle, take no guff from anyone kind of group.

Admittedly, that doesn’t track with the popular image of the nice lady (or gentleman) behind the reference desk, but the Teamsters have grown to 1.4 million members because they embrace workers from railroads to breweries to farm laborers to the folks who run the rides at amusement parks.

They are also among the most prolific political contributors. 

When I worked at Disneyland, the ride operators were represented by the Teamsters who won workers twice as much hourly pay as other employees. Why? Because they could.

If the city council can replace its librarians with privatized staff likely to be paid a lot less than the folks whose jobs they took, where does it end?

Why not “outsource” the parks department or cops? There will always be people telling you that you can get something cheaper that’s just as good as what you have now. That was the principle behind the Ford Pinto or all-self-checkout at Walmart.

I’m not sure if the public interest is served by this thing, but I suspect it will be fun to watch.