‘It’s Going to Take a Revolution’: Pandemic Exacerbates Tensions Between Strand Bookstore Owner and Workers
Owner Nancy Bass Wyden’s plea for help on social media also brought attention to issues plaguing Strand employees during the pandemic.
A socially distanced line stretches down 12th Street, even on an average weekday. After an employee — head counter in hand — motions the next visitor to enter, the Strand Bookstore seems just as bustling as usual inside. Customers, following duct-taped arrows on the wooden floor, can still browse the 18 miles of books as they could pre-pandemic.
Despite the bustling activity, the Strand, one of the largest independent bookstores in the world, has not escaped the past several months unscathed.
The pandemic has not only resulted in owner Nancy Bass Wyden pleading for support from the public on social media, but it has also brought attention to other issues, including ones that plague Strand employees and have gone largely unnoticed by customers.
“This is really Nancy’s first tango with public perception when this much is on the line,” said Melissa Guzy, Strand’s union shop steward and bookseller of five years. “And a lot has come out since that public plea that people are starting to take notice of and they have questions.”
In an Oct. 23 tweet, Bass Wyden’s open letter explains that compared to last year, the Strand’s revenue has dropped nearly 70%. “Because of the impact of COVID-19, we cannot survive the huge decline in foot-traffic, a near complete loss of tourism, and zero in-store events,” the letter reads.
On this, Guzy is in agreement with Bass Wyden. “And 70% puts it lightly,” she said, adding that the letter was necessary to spark sales — afterward the Strand saw a record number of online orders. But Guzy and other employees are more critical of Bass Wyden for other things, such as the store’s slow implementation of COVID safety measures and Bass Wyden’s recent financial history.
Bass Wyden was found to have spent millions on stocks since the beginning of the pandemic, including over $115,000 on one of their biggest competitors, Amazon. She has been critical of Amazon in the past, notably in an op-ed she penned for CNN.
However, in a statement to Barron’s, Bass Wyden said that buying stock was necessary to keep the Strand afloat. “I continue to stand against the unfair giveaways from local governments to giant corporations like Amazon, but the economic opportunity presented by the unfortunate downturn in the market will allow me to keep The Strand in business,” she said.
Many have taken notice of her stock purchases, as they were made in light of the Strand’s mass layoffs; 188 (170 of which were union members) were laid off out of 217 employees in March. Upon reopening on June 22, over 30 union workers were rehired.
“That’s when we discovered that almost the entire echelon of upper management that stood between the workers and Nancy had been told they’re not being asked back,” Guzy said. “Some of these people worked there for over 40 years; these are people that we had excellent relationships with, and they were gone.”
By July 6, 45 union members had been rehired, but Bass Wyden then proceeded to lay off 12 of them for a second time on July 7. “One of those guys had just put his wife and kid — baby — back on the health insurance,” Guzy said, adding that the second round of layoffs also led general manager Eddie Sutton, an employee of almost 30 years, to quit. “There was no one really left between us and Nancy after that,” she said.
On top of everything else, Bass Wyden, who also owns the building the Strand is located in, had received a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan of between $1 and 2 million, which was meant to be used to retain 212 employees.
“Many of my former coworkers were laid off when she got a loan that was specifically designated to protect their jobs,” said a former bookseller, who worked at the store from the fall of 2018 to 2019 and asked to remain anonymous to protect their privacy. “The fact that she purchased so much stock in Amazon seems suspect to me, as Amazon is Strand’s largest competitor.”
“It paints a confusing picture as to how few jobs were able to be kept,” said a furloughed bookseller who requested anonymity. She was hired in February and has yet to be asked to return to work, likely because the Strand has been asking workers back based on seniority (as per union contract), according to Guzy.
The furloughed bookseller also added that she got the sense that Bass Wyden’s focus and expenses largely went toward the Strand’s expansion; Bass Wyden opened an Upper West Side location in July after plans to open it in April had been halted due to COVID-19. “It could just be poor money management on Nancy’s part, rather than a calculated attempt to screw over employees and weaken the union,” the furloughed bookseller said.
Others were not so sure; on the new location’s opening day, a group of furloughed Strand workers protested in front of the store. They explained their concerns to passersby, bringing up the matter of the PPP loan and Bass Wyden’s purchasing of stock, according to West Side Rag.
Shortly before the new location opened, Bass Wyden said in a statement to Gothamist that the Strand was “too optimistic about reopening.”
“We wanted to welcome our community and our booksellers back, but the harsh reality is that foot traffic is non-existent,” she said.
Regarding the PPP loan, Bass Wyden told InsideHook that the Strand is following all of the terms of the loan agreement, and their goal is to get as close to the pre-pandemic number of employees as possible by Dec. 31.
“The reality is, if we would’ve taken back all of our employees, we would have burned through the loan in a month, easily,” she said. “We had to stretch every penny to try to make the loan work. So, it was helpful and we didn’t use it all up.”
In the same statement, Bass Wyden also added that thanks to the public support following her open letter, the Strand has been able to start hiring people again.
“[Bass Wyden] has very good answers for all those things,” Guzy said, referring to the PPP loan, stock acquisitions, and layoffs. “I appreciate those answers and we look forward to speaking to her at the negotiation table this coming summer about these things.”
According to Guzy, Bass Wyden was also slow to implement the agreed-upon COVID-19 health and safety plan, initially blocking the purchase of PPE and acrylic shields.
“We had to go through weeks upon weeks of debate, negotiation and argument with management to get the money released for the purchasing of the most basic supplies to fulfill the health and safety plan that they themselves crafted,” Guzy said.
Though Guzy says the Strand employees now have protective equipment, there have been some lingering issues, including enforcing customer mask-wearing and the occupancy limit of 125 customers.
“Even with the head counter, they like to use the word ‘squishy’ and ‘flexible’ for the amount of people who are allowed in the store,” she said. Guzy also said that there have been debates about playing a recorded message that reminds customers to wear their masks, with the store’s leadership arguing that it creates an unfriendly environment.
Several former employees also took to social media to share their past experiences at the store, including Rivka, who requested to be referred to only by her first name. Having worked at the Strand from 2016 to 2019, she responded to the posting of Bass Wyden’s letter with a thread on Twitter.
“Both during and after working there, I thought it was odd and kind of off-putting how Strand had this cult following and was sort of put on a pedestal,” Rivka said. “It’s like people were tricked by the facade of an indie bookstore and couldn’t see past that to the terrible working conditions and the general misery of the employees.”
The former bookseller, who said they in part left their job due to management’s slowness to provide medical accommodations, noted that the way that Bass Wyden’s letter is phrased is not a good sign for potential change.
“The letter does not mention any concern for the safety of employees who have to be on the sales floor with customers who refuse to wear masks or follow distancing protocols,” the former bookseller said. “It doesn’t thank the employees who kept the store afloat through severe understaffing after the layoffs.”
Guzy said that there was a “negative temperature change” at the store beginning in 2018 when Bass Wyden’s father, Fred Bass — who was the previous owner of the Strand — died and Bass Wyden took over, adding that conflict with management became “routine.”
Despite the issues with Bass Wyden and management, Guzy, Rivka, and the former bookseller hope the Strand survives the pandemic and changes for the better in terms of placing more value on their employees.
“My personal opinion is that if the Strand doesn’t survive, it’s not going to be for lack of support from the public or from a pandemic or from an economic downturn; it’s not going to survive because Nancy took her ball and went home,” Guzy said. “But it’s going to take a revolution in the relationship between the owner and the workers for this to work.”
Nancy Bass Wyden did not respond to Local’s request for comment at the time of publication.
