More than a dozen Boston Public Library employees showed up at the library’s board of trustees meeting this week with a heartfelt appeal to let one worker take extended sick leave donated by her coworkers.
“I have worked at the library for more than 12 years as the curator of Fine Arts in the Special Collections department at the Boston Public Library,” Eve Griffin told the board. “In 2019, I was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. This is a terminal diagnosis.”
She has already used all of her allotted sick days and leave, forcing her to take unpaid time off to attend doctor appointments and continue her treatment. And that absenteeism puts her job at risk. Griffin asked to use time off her coworkers in the BPL Professional Staff Association union donated through an approved sick day fund — but the BPL and the city’s Office of Labor Relations denied that request.
Griffin later said through tears that she didn’t want to share her private medical issue, but she felt she had no better choice.
“I can show you my doctor’s notes and my records,” she told GBH News. “I mean, I’m not pretending to have cancer.”
Her colleagues also spoke up at Tuesday’s board meeting in support.
“These sick bank hours are not additional cost to the institution. They are already donated, accounted for and budgeted,” said archivist Crystal Rodgers. “These hours are intended precisely for circumstances like Eve Griffin’s.”
She called on the board to reverse management’s decision and approve Griffin’s request out of common sense.
“The Boston Public Library is an esteemed, respected, and beloved institution,” Rodgers said. “However, its reputation must be built not only on the services it provides to the public, but also on how it treats its own employees. This is a defining moment, an opportunity to demonstrate that the BPL values its people as much as it values its mission.”
Allison Hahn, president of the BPL Professional Staff Association union, said they had previously presented BPL President David Leonard with a petition signed by its members asking the library to reconsider its decision. “It was ignored,” she said.
The union then took its cause public. As of Wednesday, more than 3,600 people have signed the online petition asking the BPL to grant Griffin use of the shared sick bank.
“We did not take sending a document to the public — rallying them — lightly,” Hahn said.
The Trustees did not take action at the meeting, calling it a personnel matter that they cannot comment on.
A BPL spokesperson reiterated that policy in a statement to GBH News. They told GBH News they take employee health seriously but must follow city policy when it comes to paid time off.
“As a department of the City of Boston, we are required to implement the City of Boston’s policies for sick leave and paid time off, which ensure employee benefits regardless of a staff member’s race, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, disability, diagnosis or other issues,” the spokesperson said.
Griffin said she doesn’t entirely understand why BPL management denied her request, but said she’s aware there’s concern over precedent.
“I guess the concern might be that more people would ask for this time,” she said. “My opinion is if people need that time, if they have a catastrophic illness, they should be able to have that time. That’s a good precedent.”
For now, Griffin is on a new chemotherapy drug and is responding well. And she continues to work, but has dipped into her life savings to pay her bills, because sick days have been denied. BPL employees don’t have long-term disability benefits, so access to the extended sick bank is what is available to them.
The denial of sick leave requests could lead to more absenteeism for Griffin, Hahn said, which could lead to an “essential job duties hearing” and, ultimately, employment termination.
Rodgers said what has happened to Griffin can happen to any other library employees.
“Stand up for what’s right in a time when it’s more important than ever. Not just for Eve, but for all of us,” said Rodgers. “We are all just a diagnosis or unexpected emergency away from needing this very same support.”
