Union members on library staff not consulted about rally, claims Cork City Council

WHILE hundreds of people took to the streets of Cork on Friday for a rally supporting Cork city librarians harassed by far right activists protesting against LGBTQ+ books, a war of words has broken out between the largest public sector union and Cork City Council.

Friday’s rally, which was organised by Fórsa, the union representing the majority of civil and public servants, came in the wake of an ongoing series of incidents involving protesters objecting to the availability of what they term “pornographic” books related to LGBTQ+ matters.

During those incidents, library staff have been filmed and streamed against their wishes and, according to Fórsa, have been called “groomers” and “paedophiles”.

Outside the city council’s civic offices, Fórsa’s head of Local Authorities, Richy Carrothers, called upon Cork City Council and the gardaí to provide improved protections for library staff against harassment and intimidation by anti-LGBTQ+ protesters.

“Our message to Cork City Council is that you’re failing to provide a safe place for our members to work, you’re failing to provide a safe place for the people of this city to the library and go about their business,” he said.

Mr Carrothers said Fórsa was calling for an immediate, public, independent risk assessment of all public libraries in Cork city to ensure all library workers and users were provided with a safe space free of harassment and intimisation.

The union has previously threatened industrial against the city council for what the union has described as its failure to protect its library staff.

However, an email sent on Friday to members of Cork City Council by Cork City Librarian David O’Brien, and seen by The Echo, is strongly critical of Fórsa.

“Fórsa members within the library staff were not consulted properly about this march and most learnt of it through the media and by an email received on 5 July,” Mr O’Brien said.

In the email, Mr O’Brien stated that Friday’s march from the central library to City Hall was in support of library staff and “not one of protest by library staff as has been reported by some media outlets”.

He added that a media claim that library staff were “fed-up” with ongoing harassment and intimidation “was in fact a comment made by a non-staff member”.

Mr O’Brien’s remarks were prefaced by a statement that “The health, safety and wellbeing of staff is – and always has been – of the highest importance to senior management at Cork City Libraries”.

Cork City Libraries have reviewed and updated its health and safety systems, Mr O’Brien’s email stated, and “management offered appropriate supports to staff in impacted libraries”.

Outside Cork City Council’s civic offices on Friday afternoon, Mr Carrothers said Fórsa was determined to ensure that library workers would have a safe, intimidation-free workspace where they could do their work and be themselves.

To that end, he said, Fórsa was calling on council management to immediately seek legal advice on exclusion orders for people who intimidate staff or service users within public buildings.