'Not What I Signed Up For': SF Librarians Demand More Security Guards

About 100 librarians and their supporters rallied outside San Francisco’s Main Library on Tuesday to demand the city hire security guards for every branch. Workers decried a lack of security at most of the city’s branches and said they are often forced to de-escalate volatile situations and step into the role of providing security themselves.

“I am a librarian, I am a branch manager — I am not a policewoman, I am not a security guard,” said Nicole Germain, manager of the Portola Branch Library and president of the Library Guild of SEIU 1021, the union which represents San Francisco library workers.

As public spaces, libraries — and the people who work in them — often directly face the city’s most difficult social challenges, like homelessness and substance use disorder.

Currently, eight of the city’s 28 public libraries have at least one security guard.

Germain said on one occasion, she had to intervene when a half-naked and “mentally unstable” man began wielding a sharp metal object and yelling at people. She chose to physically put herself between the man and a group of preschoolers.

“This is not what I signed up for when I became a librarian,” Germain said. “However, as a branch manager and children’s librarian, that is the position I find myself in.”

Union negotiators have asked for more security for the city’s libraries for years. In 2019, the city agreed to hire three more security guards, including at the Portola branch.

Germain said it makes a difference and works as a preventative measure. “People are more apt to behave,” she said.

San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan joined Tuesday’s rally to support library workers’ demands.

“If San Francisco can advocate for our corporations, for our pharmacies, for our downtown stores to be staffed up with guards and police and deputy sheriffs — why can’t we guard our libraries?” Chan said.

Chan is also chair of the city’s Budget and Finance Committee. She said San Francisco’s youth commissioners recently came to a committee meeting to talk about their priorities for the city.

“They talk about what they want to see in the budget, as they are our future, and where they want the city to invest our money,” Chan said. “And the one place they mentioned is the library.”

Jessica Choy, who works part-time at the Park Branch Library in the city’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, said she’s also fighting for full-time employment.

“Our public libraries rely on a huge number of part-time workers like me. Even when we get raises, it’s not enough to get by in one of the most expensive cities in the world,” Choy said. “We’re only guaranteed 20 hours a week. So we’re hustling to get extra hours every day, some of us waking up at midnight checking our apps, trying to pick up a shift.”

The rally comes as San Francisco’s contracts across 10 unions, representing more than 25,000 city workers, are set to expire June 30. And for the first time in decades, negotiations over those contracts are happening against a backdrop of potential strikes. In July, the California Public Employment Relations Board struck down a 50-year-old city rule prohibiting city workers from striking.

Tuesday’s rally is the latest in a series of union actions, with workers across city departments seeking to draw attention to what they say is a pervasive understaffing crisis. At these actions, the unions have also been collecting signatures from city employees pledging to join a strike if one is called.