This morning, Mayor Lightfoot announced that 10 branches will open for Sunday hours on April 18, claiming that this was a step toward making the libraries more accessible. However, CPL has an understaffing problem that has long gone unaddressed. In 2018, the Inspector General - https://twitter.com/chicagosmayor/status/1379808194797527045

slammed CPL for failing to "align staffing with community needs." In 2019, they released a follow up revealing that their recommendations to solve this issue were either not completed or rejected outright: https://igchicago.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Chicago-Public-Library-Staffing-Follow-Up.pdf Since then, little has changed. We are exhausted.

We have been fully open to the public in a pandemic since June 2020. Exhausted, scared workers are trying to keep patrons masked, socially distanced and safe on top of our regular duties - and the duties of the many vacant positions in our locations. Most security guards, who -

help keep our patron counts and enforce mask wearing and capacity limits, are part time at the branches. So is custodial staff, which means keeping locations safely clean is a shared duty piled on top of everything else we do. If Mayor Lightfoot wants the libraries open -

on Sundays, she should be staffing us properly FIRST, a task that will take some time, as the issue is so drastic. We are tired. We have gotten sick, had to fight for vaccine priority, and now we are pressed to provide more more more without proper staff. The Mayor is happy to -

use us for a pretty press op, while treating us like disposable automatons. We are human beings. Our physical health, mental health and safety matter. The Mayor needs to start acting like she actually cares.

@chicagosmayor you're welcome to come work at any of our many understaffed locations and see what it's actually like at the library. Instead of a pretty new branch, maybe try the one that had a chronic flooding problem and asbestos, or the one that had its windows shot out?