Community members plan to ask the Alachua County Library District (ACLD) board of governors to reinstate an ad hoc committee formed last year to examine library workplace environment.  

The ACLD board of governors initially requested the committee’s formation in August 2023, but canceled its first meeting in December and suspended any meetings until March at the earliest. 

In response, many community members who were to be appointed to the 13-member committee resigned their positions and came together Monday night for an unofficial meeting. 

Community members and leaders, including Gainesville Commissioner Casey Willits and Alachua County NAACP President Evelyn Foxx, filled a room in the Pride Community Center to gain a better understanding of library staff complaints. 

Willits and others who came to the meeting to listen for problems said they would use their connections to help inform governing board members. 

“I know that there’s fear,” Willits said to anonymous employees who aired grievances at the meeting. “But that information getting to the governing board is still, I think, a valid function of having a governing board.” 

Willits also said staff members need to demand more from their union. 

Though the committee originally sprang from LGBTQ+ community complaints about library climate, many concerns discussed in the unofficial meeting covered a broader range of issues, including communication from administrators, rigid scheduling that does not allow staff to trade shifts, and a preference to communicate certain policies verbally instead of in writing. 

A handful of library employees, who chose not to identify themselves because of concerns of retaliation, attended Monday’s unofficial meeting and echoed some of the same themes brought up in several anonymous resignation letters, including administration’s lack of trust and communication with staff, and a fear of retaliation if they bring complaints to the governing board. 

Alachua County Labor Coalition (ACLC) coordinator Bobby Mermer read several of the letters out loud, citing understaffing, overworking and a lack of support for transgender employees. Staff members in attendance did not comment on those claims. 

The anonymous staff members in attendance did say that library administration looks negatively on the use of paid time off (PTO). One said library director Shaney Livingston has told managers they approve too much PTO, but that she would not provide a written policy on how much PTO could be approved because it should be common sense. The staff noted during the Monday meeting that PTO is a negotiated benefit in their union contract. 

The contract, reviewed by Mainstreet Daily News, shows employees receive a tiered PTO accrual based on length of service. There is no cap on how much PTO an employee can accrue, but prior written approval is needed for requests for 40 or more hours. Approval must fit with the library’s operational needs and annual usage cap, with a caveat that no request may be “unjustly denied.” 

Livingston did not respond to multiple requests for comment. 

The staff members said library employees can go through a grievance process with their union, the Communication Workers of America (CWA), but one staffer said library workers seem to have the impression those complaints will fall flat. The staffer said there are rumors the union cannot help because there is usually no written policy on things like being selective with library material and how to enforce the Safety in Private Spaces Act in library bathrooms. 

When the Safety in Private Spaces Act came into effect, administration sent out an all-staff email pointing staff to the legislation and posted a QR code to the new law on bathroom doors. The email updated people on the legal requirements to use bathrooms aligned with their sex assigned at birth. Staff expressed frustration that the district did not provide specifics on how to deal with someone who acts contrary to the law. 

CWA’s union organizer for the district, Jenn Powell, said the union has not received those grievances. She said the last library grievance the CWA received was six months ago, and it had to do with a worker’s suspension—a battle which the union won. Powell said CWA has been successful in most of its grievances, but there is nothing it can do if employees do not actually file the grievance. 

Though she has heard talk about the library’s poor handling of the Safety in Private Spaces Act, Powell said no one ever filed a grievance. Instead, at least two employees resigned, which removed them from the union and the ability to grieve any issue they took with ACLD. 

When she heard about the removal of a book from the Battle of the Books event for teens, Powell said she referred the workers to the labor coalition, because a book removal is not a grievable issue. She said she had not heard at all about issues with PTO. 

Powell said staff has likely not filed their grievances because they fear retaliation, but retaliation is illegal and the union can act on it. She said she knows there must be some issues because of the number of union members who have resigned from ACLD, but CWA cannot help if employees do not speak up. 

“Grievances are how we make change in the workplace,” Powell said in a phone interview. “That’s how we will make change. So we can’t change anything if we don’t know about it.” 

Powell said CWA is looking into organizing an informal sit-down between union leaders, library employees and Livingston, the library director. She said the union needs to hear what the problems are, but also what solutions employees want to demand.  

In a December board of governors meeting, Livingston said she has quarterly meetings with union representatives and has heard employee complaints, but current and former staff at the unofficial committee meeting said that is part of the problem. The staff at Monday’s meeting said though Livingston knows about the problems, she does not solve them. 

Meeting attendees expressed additional frustration that the administration and governing board are out of touch with library staff. 

“The people on this [governing] board, I know all of them,” Debbie Lewis, a former library employee and one of the committee appointees who resigned, said in a phone interview. “They’re all elected officials. They don’t know anything about libraries.” 

The governing board includes Gainesville Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut, Alachua County Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler, Alachua County Commissioner Mary Alford, Alachua County Commissioner Ken Cornell, School Board Member Leanetta McNealy and Gainesville Commissioner Reina Saco. 

Lewis said the board relies on reports from the library director, and though the library district may be financially stable, it is in that position in part because administrative positions like Administrative Services Division Director and Public Services Administrator sit vacant while other employees pick up the slack without extra pay. 

Complaints such as these prompted the ACLD board of governors to create a “library climate committee” to look into workplace environment at its Aug. 10 meeting. 

A group of community members attended the August meeting to speak in protest the removal of an LGBTQ+ book from Battle of the Books. Several community members read complaints from anonymous library staff members, and board members picked up on concerns about staff feeling uncomfortable and unheard. 

Governor Mary Alford asked about getting community input on library culture change suggestions, and Livingston said she would be willing to work with such suggestions. The board passed the motion, and board chair Cynthia Chestnut appointed Alford as chair of the committee. 

“If we have this many employees that have come forward saying these kinds of things, there is a problem at a certain level,” Alford said in the August meeting. 

The board agreed to create the ad hoc committee to represent the voices of “underrepresented” groups such as the LGBTQ+ and African American communities. Alford said in a Dec. 14 meeting that the committee had about 13 appointees. 

However, the committee’s work came to a standstill in that same December meeting, before it ever began. The library climate committee was scheduled to meet for the first time on Dec. 18, a time gap which Alford explained as a learning curve for the committee’s staff liaison, who had never served in that capacity before. 

Alford explained that the extra time before the first meeting had allowed the word to spread about possible issues the committee would be looking into, interest which she said she was not happy to see. 

Livingston said she had had a staffer ask to send out an all-staff email about the committee’s purpose, and that she had heard some staff was being solicited to attend. She said she did not feel clear on what the committee was meant to do and asked the board for a more focused definition. 

“What I don’t want to have happen,” Livingston said in the December meeting, “is that this committee turns into a griping session, and we give the expectations to the staff that this committee is going to fix everything or become the management system.” 

In response, Governor Ken Cornell emphasized that the committee was to partner with underrepresented groups for suggestions on improvement, not to “fix” things staff claimed to be wrong. 

“I feel like this has turned into, potentially, a problem seeking a solution where a problem doesn’t exist.” Cornell said. “There’s a distinct difference between seeking input for improving something, versus presuming that there’s an issue and then asking folks to come and address it.” 

Cornell also said libraries are under attack from the state Legislature, whose laws on books in school libraries have led to controversies in Alachua County Public Schools. 

Cornell said the state laws coming down on topics such as LGBTQ+ or African American history are intended to divide, and he does not want to attract the Legislature’s attention. For those reasons, he made a motion to postpone any library climate committee meetings until after the legislative session ends on March 8. 

In addition, Cornell’s motion asked for the library director and her staff to create a survey for all ACLD employees to find out if staff does see issues with the work environment, and if so, what those issues are. 

Alford agreed a survey could be helpful, but she also noted that delaying the committee would likely upset community members, and she asked if the survey could be created and conducted by an outside party. 

“I’m not gonna be one of the people complaining if this board is postponed,” Alford said. “But I know there’ll be other people complaining, and I’m afraid they’ll complain loudly.” 

Cornell’s motion passed with Alford as the only dissent. 

Cornell and Alford did not respond to requests for comment made before the unofficial meeting that occurred on Monday. 

The library governing board was scheduled to meet again Jan. 11, but canceled that meeting. The board of trustees—which fills an advisory role to the governing board— was scheduled to meet this week, but that meeting was also canceled. The governing board’s next meeting is scheduled for Feb. 8.