Union representing library employees says city payroll glitch caused workers to lose health coverage. The city disagrees.

Some Free Library of Philadelphia workers who belong to AFSCME District Council 33, Local 696, have been trying to figure out why their union dues aren’t being deducted from their paychecks. The seeming glitch has resulted in some members temporarily losing their health insurance.

The union and the city acknowledge the issue. Union leadership says it’s a city problem, perhaps caused by the long-troubled payroll system OnePhilly. A city spokesperson said DC 33 has been providing incomplete files on new member cards, so the city has been unable to collect union dues from those employees.

Employees say they don’t know who is at fault, but the loss of coverage “feels arbitrary,” says library worker Aileen Haggerty, who was hired in January 2023 and helped organize a Zoom call in December to discuss the issue with colleagues.

About 40 people joined the Zoom meeting, Haggerty said, and 10 to 15 of them provided information on their recent loss of insurance coverage. A few more said it had happened to them before 2023, within their first few months on the job, she recalled.

Ernest Garrett, president of ASFCME District Council 33, said he’s concerned about the problem, but it seems to be affecting only a small group of library employees.

“I hope and pray that it is something that is resolved soon,” he said. The union covers excess medical costs for any members who encounter large bills because of a lapse in coverage, Garrett added.

The city collects new union members’ cards electronically, the city spokesperson said.

“Without an accurate [union card] on file, we cannot start collecting dues, and they will not show up as dues-paying members. How this might relate to the employee’s health coverage is a decision solely made by DC33,” the city’s spokesperson said.

Local 696 members expressed frustration that the union has made it the members’ responsibility to ensure their dues are being collected, as a recent social media post by union leadership suggested.

“It’s been portrayed to us [by union leaders] that it’s on us for not seeing that our union dues weren’t coming out of our pay stubs,” said Georgia Mae Lively, a library worker and Local 696 member in North Philadelphia since March 2023. “As a new employee, I didn’t know what that was supposed to look like.”

It’s common for employers to deduct union dues from an employee’s paycheck and pass that money along to the union. The city spokesperson noted that under the 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Janus v. ASFCME, employees must give their consent for that deduction by signing a union card.

Lively learned about the problem when she went to the dentist and was told that she couldn’t get treatment because she wasn’t insured. She called the union’s health and wellness office and got her insurance reinstated, so she was able to go to the dentist a week later, but she still hasn’t been able to get union dues deducted from her paychecks.

Another library employee who was hired in spring 2023 and asked not to be named out of concern for their employment, said they discovered in November that union dues had never been deducted from their paychecks. They contacted their union representative, who assured them it wouldn’t be a problem.

But then the spring 2023 hire logged into their insurance site and saw that their coverage would be terminated at the end of November. The union assured them that their insurance would be reinstated.

As of Dec. 27, the spring 2023 hire said, their insurance hadn’t been reinstated. They rescheduled appointments for 2024, hoping it will be solved by then.

“My medications are running out. Am I going to be able to refill them?” the spring 2023 hire said.

Lively said the library employees she knows to be currently experiencing this problem were hired within the last year. The city set out to hire about 300 new librarians and assistants in 2022, in an effort to solve staffing shortages and allow more branches to be open six days a week.

But the dues problem dates back further than that, according to Garrett and Local 696 members.

Anne Johnson started as a seasonal library employee in 2017. She signed a union card when she went full time in April 2022, but struggled to sign up for health insurance. In May, she learned that union dues weren’t being deducted from her paycheck, so she contacted the union to rectify the problem.

“In July [2022] I was still sending e-mails to people,” Johnson said, and she was still paying out of pocket for insurance. Finally, that month, she was able to sign up for the union plan, but she still didn’t see the union dues coming out of her paycheck, despite having signed multiple union cards.

She later encountered health-care billing issues and was once told that her insurance had been canceled. Each time, she was able to get help from the union for medical needs, she said, but she’s still not getting union dues deducted from her pay.

“I want to be paying my union dues,” Johnson said. “It’s hard to tell where the disconnect is.”

Garrett said it’s a problem that the city isn’t always collecting union dues from paychecks, but “our position is as long as people have medical coverage and their wages are paid correctly, then we will deal with that.”

In late December, DC 33′s Instagram account sent out “an urgent message” about health coverage. The post referenced rumors about members losing coverage through Independence Blue Cross, assuring them that the union’s contract with the insurance company is active until the end of 2025.

The post said members can go to the union’s health and welfare office with any incorrect bills caused by a coverage lapse, and the union will cover the extra cost. It also told members to “always review your pay stubs to ensure that union dues are being deducted!”

“We would like for members to have their dues deducted properly,” Garrett said. “One thing we’ve never done is back-bill a member” for unpaid dues.

Garrett would not say how much money they’ve spent on members’ uninsured medical bills due to the errors.

As for health-care access, he said it’s a problem if providers are denying care to members because of an insurance coverage lapse.

Garrett says he is certain the problem is not with the union’s insurance provider, Independence Blue Cross.

He noted that Philadelphia’s payroll system, OnePhilly, has been rife with issues — something the city has admitted and sought to address. But Garrett said the problem may not be attributable to OnePhilly alone. He suggested that “it could be an error by the person putting in the information” and that “even before OnePhilly, there were issues where people would get dropped.”

“I’m in no way trying to make an excuse for the city. I’m 100% for the members and trying to get this straight,” Garrett said.

The city is working with the union to do just that, the city spokesperson said. As for timing on the solution, she said it would be best to check with the union.