- United States
- Ariz.
- Letter
I believe that the City of Flagstaff is not complying with AZ Labor Laws, nor are they providing a safe working environment for their library employees at the Flagstaff City - Coconino County Public Library.
I had been covering 2 jobs since June 4th and it took the City over a month to tell me that I was only getting a $2 an hour raise for covering a Supervisor position, which was two levels above my Library Specialist position. Due to Flagstaff’s affordable housing crisis, we’re so understaffed that I still had to cover all of ILL and one Reference Desk shift. And the money? After reporting them to the City Wage Theft Office, they finally told me I would get it all as an retroactive payment on July 26th. They scheduled a meeting to explain why the pay was late on July 17th. This is NOT LEGAL— under AZ State Law I believe you’re supposed to get paid within 5 days of the the end of the pay, and this went on for several pay periods (we got payed biweekly).
I needed the money, but I would have been better off getting a 2nd job at Target. I found out the pay wasn’t coming til July 26th on July 3rd, the day after a library patron threatened to run over myself and two Terros (critical incident mental health team) first responders I was meeting in the parking lot to help them find a patron with a gaping head wound who had been jumped at 2am by unknown assailants and asked to leave the ER at 5am.
I fully support the public library’s dual role as both a library and as the last way station for those left behind by the rest of society. But someone has to make the hard calls about who to ban, and someone HAS TO PAY MY SALARY.
I resigned on Friday morning after hyperventilating in my office and ran out the library crying “I can’t work without pay!” and clutching two large teddy bears that I had brought in for the Teddy Bear picnic. As I told HR later in an email : FYI, those were legally my bears.
I just wanted a job where I didn’t get sexually assaulted or threatened with death while at work, where the computers weren’t running WINDOWS 7, and where I got paid on time. Making enough to stay in Flagstaff would have been nice too. I am feeling betrayed by my city government and heartbroken to boot, because Flagstaff is my hometown.
