In addition to the five confirmed cases of COVID-19 among employees at Barnes & Noble’s big Monroe, NJ warehouse, the company acknowledged in a recent memo that they “have had nine employees contact us with confirmed cases” of the virus. The first confirmed case of an employee testing positive was back on March 12 by one account (and April 1 by another), which is part of why workers staging a protest Tuesday insisted the company has not done enough to protect them. NJ.com says about 15 employees participated in the protest. Beyond the nine confirmed cases, a representative for employee […]
Bookstores
As COVID-19 Cases Appear at Barnes & Noble’s Warehouse, Workers Organize Protest
With the first cases of COVID-19 at Barnes & Noble’s big 1.4-million-square-foot distribution center in Monroe, NJ, a coalition of warehouse workers and other advocates have planned a protest outside of the facility on Tuesday afternoon “to demand protections.” The organizers note the facility “employs nearly 800 workers, most of whom are Latino immigrants.” Among their demands are asking for a two week closure of the facility — with paid time-off — for “full sanitization,” with “better safety protections, including sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE), social distancing and cleaning” thereafter along with “hazard pay” and “recognition of the ability to […]
Assistance: Patterson Helps Indie Stores In New Campaign, PEN Increases Grants to Writers
James Patterson is making a personal donation of $500,000 to help save independent bookstores across the country, as part of a new fund to be administered by BINC (Book Industry Charitable Foundation) that is raising money to support stores rather than individual booksellers in need. Patterson is joining with Reese Witherspoon, as well as the ABA, in a new awareness and fundraising campaign, #SaveIndieBookstores, running through April 30. BINC will distribute the pool of funds raised to eligible independent bookstores “by May 15.” Apparently those grants will be available to ABA member stores only. The site indicates, “Funds received are […]
Indigo Books Lays Off 5,200 Employees
Now that Indigo Books physical stores are closed until further notice, the company temporarily laid off 5,200 retail employees as of last Friday. (According to their website, they employed a total of about 7,000 people.) All employees had been paid during the initial hiatus, from March 17 until March 28. Spokesperson Kate Gregory said the company had “made the difficult decision” to layoff employees temporarily. The company expects “to re-embrace as many as possible when this period of store closure is over.” Longer closures will put stress on bookstores large and small. Slate talks to some independent booksellers, for whom […]
People, Etc.
Laura Mazer has joined Wendy Sherman Associates as a literary agent representing adult nonfiction. Previously, she was executive editor at Seal Press. Bookselling Powell’s Books announced that they have rehired some of the employees they fired earlier in the month due to strong online orders. It was widely misreported that the store has rehired over 100 people — whereas what ceo and owner Emily Powell wrote on Facebook was that “over 100” people are working at the store again. The union representing many Powell’s workers clarified to the Oregonian “that the bookstore has only recalled 49 union workers, and said […]
Over Half of Barnes & Noble Stores Now Temporarily Closed
After resisting closing stores as much as possible, in recent days Barnes & Noble has been forced to temporarily shutter a number of their stores nationwide by order of local governments. As of late Wednesday morning, BN confirmed to Publishers Lunch that they now “have over 370 temporary store closures.” With a base of 620 stores across the country under normal operations, that means BN has closed about 60 percent of their stores so far. That leaves them with something under 250 stores still currently open. (At least a few more BN locations announced on social media during the day […]