A message from the Guild President and Guild Chief Steward
Guild Members, Colleagues:
We hope you all continue as well as can be in these trying times. Know that the Guild has continued our work on behalf of our members, our bargaining unit, and all employees at the Library.
We are writing to you today with an update on current Guild engagement during the phased restoration of operations.
As we all well know, this continues an incredibly challenging time for all of us in the region and across the country: The COVID-19 public health emergency has brought sweeping changes to daily life as well as unleashing national economic challenges, while unrest at the center of our civil society’s discourse appears all the more urgent on the eve of a presidential election. As institutions and governments begin to “open up” with the global pandemic only partially controlled, some Library staff are justifiably apprehensive as the restoration of operations continues to expand amid uncertainty.
Dr. Hayden is to be commended for her response to this crisis, as is her management team. In the six months of the pandemic crisis, the Library first acted swiftly to move staff to telework or admin leave, provided Library laptops to those who did not have them, and created flexibilities in scheduling to accommodate illness, high risk, and child and elder care needs.
We can report that based in our ongoing consultations with management, the response of the Library has so far been both proactive and responsive to Guild concerns. As Dr. Hayden reiterated in a recent video message to staff (August 27): “The past six months have not been easy for any of us and we have asked everyone to be patient and flexible. So thank all of you for being just that… I hope that you will know and continue to know that your safety and health are paramount in all the things that we try to do.”
The Guild has been engaged with Library management regarding its pandemic response from the early days of the crisis. In fact, in late January, we received notifications from Library staff who had traveled in impacted regions globally, and who had concerns which we brought to the attention of management.
From that point on we have been actively working with management to resolve any issues impacting the health and safety of staff at the Library. To a large extent, this has entailed a process of ongoing engagement with you, the employees responsible for the work of our institution. We have received many queries and concerns from you, our members, and we have, and will continue to, bring these concerns to the attention of Library management and to help find solutions. Obviously, there is a lot at stake for all us. Having these conversations with you has allowed us to provide depth and detail to management regarding working conditions both onsite, and while teleworking, in the Library, and has also allowed us to speak for you to resolve issues in the workplace and while teleworking, and to promote and to enhance flexibilities for all staff during this time.
As Library operations have evolved since March, so has the Guild. We have created a virtual office that allows us to continue the important work we do. I encourage you to reach out to us with any concerns; the Guild is the exclusive voice of bargaining unit employees at the Library and we take pride in the solutions that we have engineered in representing employees. We have also engaged in situations where supervisors and managers may not have understood specific directives as the pandemic response unfolded. Does your supervisor really need your physical presence to do certain work? While the answer may sometimes be yes, there are often, however, opportunities to think outside the box to come up with solutions that keep you working on telework.
The task ahead of the Guild now is to ensure that the commitments provided to employees are honored in the coming weeks and months, especially as more operations are restored to the Library’s physical spaces.
There are several issues that are of particular importance: the continued deployment of the full range of workplace flexibilities (like telework), the issue of certification of high-risk employees, and support for colleagues who have childcare or other family care responsibilities.
Telework
The Library has repeatedly affirmed to us that the maximum of workplace flexibilities would be deployed in order to safeguard the safety of staff for the duration of the pandemic, and that no staff member would be asked to come in the Library buildings unless there was a specific work duty that could not otherwise be handled remotely. At the same time, words are an important indicator of intent, and the Guild takes notice of the recent terminology change from “maximum telework” to “enhanced telework” and the changes that this implies. The Guild is committed to the idea that during the pandemic, no one should be called upon to work in the building unless there is actual work that needs to be done onsite. Creative thinking often provides solutions whereby onsite work can be minimized by introducing new process and procedures to minimize onsite work (think photocopying title and other relevant pages for catalogers, for instance).
High-Risk Certification
Some of you were very concerned regarding the fact that the Over-65 risk factor was not included in the form issued by the Health Services Division. This issue was raised to us by several of our members and we engaged with the Office of the General Counsel (OGC) so that they can clarify their message to staff. We will continue to press for this distinction. Our understanding—which they have confirmed—is that all a staff member needs to do is to have their physician certify that age is another one of the factors making a particular person at risk. The form allows for that option. However, we also have provided them with further information about the impact of age on the high risk of death if Covid-19 is contracted. We will continue to pursue this issue.
The Library has done its due diligence to incorporate CDC recommendations for a safe environment to reduce the spread of COVID-19. However, there has been a tendency to “normalize” high risk and a tendency to assume that precautions taken (such as masks and hand washing and cleaning protocols) are as sufficient to provide a safe environment for those who are at high risk. While we want these basic measures, at the same time, high risk colleagues may also need further protections, or it may not be feasible for them to be in the workplace during the pandemic.
Lately there has been some discussion about how far COVID-19 can travel (and how fast) indoors, and we have passed these articles based on scientific studies on to management as well. The Library released information about how often the air is circulated, and what kinds of air filters are used, in response to Guild questions.
Support for Caregivers
As many of you know, the Guild has had a long-term commitment to working parents and caregivers, to help them achieve the maximum work/life balance within our agency.
The Guild has heard your concerns about enhancing teleworking flexibilities for childcare, which has been impacted by COVID-9 and the necessity to homeschool or to care for young children who would normally be in school or daycare. We received heartfelt and eloquent messages about the difficulties of balancing life-work balance under these conditions while teleworking, and we conveyed all these concerns to the OGC. We have continued to advocate for more flexibilities for parents. The latest version of the Library’s position has been to issue Special Announcement 20-12, Administrative Leave for Caregiving (8/24/20, a Library policy to grant limited administrative leave to employees who are caring for dependent children, spouses, or other adult family members during the extraordinary circumstances presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. This policy is effective Monday, August 24, 2020 and remains in effect through September 30, 2020. The Guild will continue to advocate for enhanced flexibilities for working parents after September 30.
In short, we want to let you know that the Guild has been hard at work, and that the next few weeks and months will be very important for all of us in the Library as the restoration of operations continue. The officers and stewards of the Guild are here to help and assist in these issues central to working conditions, and to ensure that the provisions of our contract, the Library of Congress regulations, and all applicable health and safety guidelines are honored.
We are planning on having a Guild membership meeting on September 23 at noon via Zoom (link and detail will be forthcoming). In the meantime, please continue to reach out to us at guild@loc.gov with any concerns, or you can contact Anne Toohey, Guild President, at annekipptoohey@gmail, or Chief Steward David Fernández-Barrial at dafe@loc.gov.
Anne Toohey
Guild President
David Fernández-Barrial
Chief Steward
