How union members at Geelong Regional Libraries drove their management
crazy ---- It's November 2020, and a member of staff at Geelong Regional
Libraries wins an award presented by their union. The award is in
recognition of the staff member's efforts, as an elected union delegate,
in leading a campaign against the library's unjust treatment of casual
employees earlier in the year. Shortly after conferring the award, the
union posts about it on its Facebook page. ---- This entire story seems
innocent enough. But not, however, for library management. The library's
CEO, trawling the union's Facebook page at almost midnight, sees the
post and immediately emails it to the library's head of HR. The head of
HR in turn immediately sends it to the library's lawyer, and the email
chain rapidly spirals into feverish paranoia, with suggestions that the
application process for the award be investigated, that the award is
fraudulent because the events it refers to never happened, and that the
union is likely orchestrating a vast conspiracy to deliberately target
and destroy Geelong Regional Libraries. "It is infuriating," the
library's lawyer concludes.
This whole exchange seems too bizarre to be real. But it is real - I've
read the entire thing. These emails, and hundreds of others like them,
have come to light as part of a large release of documents under Freedom
of Information laws detailing how management at Geelong Regional
Libraries dealt with union activity by their staff, who were conducting
energetic on-the-job organising. The internal discussions amongst top
library managers about these events provide a fascinating insight into
the weird and paranoid world of the people who rule our lives every day
in the workplace. And they show that far from being all-powerful and
invincible, our employers are often extremely vulnerable and panic at
even the slightest sign of opposition.
For Geelong Regional Libraries management, the trouble begins in March
2020. By that point, union members have been seriously organising for
over a year, and when management stands down all casual staff without
pay due to the pandemic, workers have their first serious fight. Huge
and angry union meetings immediately take place, and after an open
letter from staff urging reinstatement of the casuals with full wages is
rebuffed, workers vote for the union to publicise the library's shameful
actions.
Appalled by even rhetorical opposition to their authority, management
goes into a tailspin. Dozens of emails fly back and forth between senior
library managers, senior council staff, and local councillors. A public
GoFundMe page for library casuals prompts an emergency CEO email to the
entire library board, while a short letter to the editor in the local
paper in support of casual staff leads to a panicked 700-word email to
the library board. A union media release results in another flurry of
urgent emails. Anxious to make the issue go away, the local council
injects hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund shifts for casuals, and
library management never stands down casuals again during subsequent
lockdowns.
The problems for management, however, don't go away, as they attempt to
use the opportunity of the pandemic to freeze staff wages and remove
weekend penalty rates, and workers resist and go on strike. Dozens more
internal emails show panic and outrage at single Facebook posts, the
stalking of individual Twitter users who post mild criticisms of the
library's actions, and hours upon hours spent in preparing for the
crisis of multiple work stoppages.
The tone of much of the correspondence shows how greatly management is
rattled by their own workers. "I had to get this out of my worried
brain," the CEO writes in a near-midnight email to a senior staff member
at Geelong Council, while a city councillor, observing her late-night
emailing habits, advises her to "try and get some rest". We learn of CEO
breakfasts being spoiled after reading letters to the editor supporting
staff in the local newspaper, and of CEO annual leave being ruined by
union Facebook posts ("What an awful post," one executive whinges. "I
know, truly awful," another manager joins in). We read bewildering HR
conspiracy theories when a union activist wins an award, and see how,
time and time again, the mildest challenge to their authority sends
managers into a state of confusion, panic and self-pity. Not to mention
exhaustion. "Let's chat about this on the phone," one manager writes to
another about impending staff strike action. "My brain is hurting."
By early 2022, workers had won significant wage increases and beaten off
all attacks on their conditions, and every member of the library's
executive had either left the organisation or been forced out. Every day
at work, it can feel like we're powerless and completely at the mercy of
our bosses. But the reality is that we do all the work, we make all the
profits, we greatly outnumber them, and when we're organised and united,
their power starts to look extremely tenuous. And when you read the
bosses' emails, you realise that they know this too.
https://ancomfed.org/2025/07/my-brain-is-hurting/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
crazy ---- It's November 2020, and a member of staff at Geelong Regional
Libraries wins an award presented by their union. The award is in
recognition of the staff member's efforts, as an elected union delegate,
in leading a campaign against the library's unjust treatment of casual
employees earlier in the year. Shortly after conferring the award, the
union posts about it on its Facebook page. ---- This entire story seems
innocent enough. But not, however, for library management. The library's
CEO, trawling the union's Facebook page at almost midnight, sees the
post and immediately emails it to the library's head of HR. The head of
HR in turn immediately sends it to the library's lawyer, and the email
chain rapidly spirals into feverish paranoia, with suggestions that the
application process for the award be investigated, that the award is
fraudulent because the events it refers to never happened, and that the
union is likely orchestrating a vast conspiracy to deliberately target
and destroy Geelong Regional Libraries. "It is infuriating," the
library's lawyer concludes.
This whole exchange seems too bizarre to be real. But it is real - I've
read the entire thing. These emails, and hundreds of others like them,
have come to light as part of a large release of documents under Freedom
of Information laws detailing how management at Geelong Regional
Libraries dealt with union activity by their staff, who were conducting
energetic on-the-job organising. The internal discussions amongst top
library managers about these events provide a fascinating insight into
the weird and paranoid world of the people who rule our lives every day
in the workplace. And they show that far from being all-powerful and
invincible, our employers are often extremely vulnerable and panic at
even the slightest sign of opposition.
For Geelong Regional Libraries management, the trouble begins in March
2020. By that point, union members have been seriously organising for
over a year, and when management stands down all casual staff without
pay due to the pandemic, workers have their first serious fight. Huge
and angry union meetings immediately take place, and after an open
letter from staff urging reinstatement of the casuals with full wages is
rebuffed, workers vote for the union to publicise the library's shameful
actions.
Appalled by even rhetorical opposition to their authority, management
goes into a tailspin. Dozens of emails fly back and forth between senior
library managers, senior council staff, and local councillors. A public
GoFundMe page for library casuals prompts an emergency CEO email to the
entire library board, while a short letter to the editor in the local
paper in support of casual staff leads to a panicked 700-word email to
the library board. A union media release results in another flurry of
urgent emails. Anxious to make the issue go away, the local council
injects hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund shifts for casuals, and
library management never stands down casuals again during subsequent
lockdowns.
The problems for management, however, don't go away, as they attempt to
use the opportunity of the pandemic to freeze staff wages and remove
weekend penalty rates, and workers resist and go on strike. Dozens more
internal emails show panic and outrage at single Facebook posts, the
stalking of individual Twitter users who post mild criticisms of the
library's actions, and hours upon hours spent in preparing for the
crisis of multiple work stoppages.
The tone of much of the correspondence shows how greatly management is
rattled by their own workers. "I had to get this out of my worried
brain," the CEO writes in a near-midnight email to a senior staff member
at Geelong Council, while a city councillor, observing her late-night
emailing habits, advises her to "try and get some rest". We learn of CEO
breakfasts being spoiled after reading letters to the editor supporting
staff in the local newspaper, and of CEO annual leave being ruined by
union Facebook posts ("What an awful post," one executive whinges. "I
know, truly awful," another manager joins in). We read bewildering HR
conspiracy theories when a union activist wins an award, and see how,
time and time again, the mildest challenge to their authority sends
managers into a state of confusion, panic and self-pity. Not to mention
exhaustion. "Let's chat about this on the phone," one manager writes to
another about impending staff strike action. "My brain is hurting."
By early 2022, workers had won significant wage increases and beaten off
all attacks on their conditions, and every member of the library's
executive had either left the organisation or been forced out. Every day
at work, it can feel like we're powerless and completely at the mercy of
our bosses. But the reality is that we do all the work, we make all the
profits, we greatly outnumber them, and when we're organised and united,
their power starts to look extremely tenuous. And when you read the
bosses' emails, you realise that they know this too.
https://ancomfed.org/2025/07/my-brain-is-hurting/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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