At 5.11 pm on Friday, the entire staff of Melbourne Theosophical Society were made redundant, effective immediately. The library and TS Bookshop are now closed.
The fight to save these vital parts of Melbourne’s heritage is not over! But it is with a heavy heart that we inform you of this act of cultural vandalism by the MTS Board.
Staff had been formally told just hours earlier that a final decision on retrenchment would not be taken until Monday. Despite this, the five booksellers, the librarian and the MTS bookkeeper were emailed at close of business with confirmation of immediate redundancy.
In a final act of gaslighting, the board posted a notice on the MTS door that reads “Temporary closure — coming soon, new bookshop and library”.
Let us be clear: the board has agreed NO PLANS for these spaces. It began to consult its members only AFTER the staff had been laid off and the shutters drawn on the business. New job descriptions circulated for the lodge refer only to a “gift shop”.
If you are on the TS Bookshop mailing list, you will no doubt soon receive an email that the bookshop is closed because staff quit. This is not true. They were made redundant.
New jobs for which staff were invited to apply were as “administrative assistants” working across the lodge, including in a “gift shop”. The word bookshop was never used. The vast majority of these jobs entailed acting as gophers for directors and managing lodge events. There were four jobs between the seven serving MTS staff, with half the current hours.
A job description for “Librarian” was in fact another admin position supporting the board. It contained no description of the specialised work a librarian does. Instead it involved running events, promotions, buildings management, stationery ordering and money handling.
No positions as bookseller were offered, no guarantee made that the bookshop would continue, and not one of the staff felt the jobs offered were serious, suitable or even practical. They seemed almost designed to be unacceptable. None of the staff therefore applied.
What you will likely find if and when the MTS doors reopen is a “gift shop” with bookshelves stripped out, running a fire sale of existing stock, and a library staffed by volunteers.
You will not find the helpful, knowledgeable and supportive staff able to source and order books for you from around the world.
We thank you for your support over the past weeks. It has been overwhelming and has confirmed to us the love that people hold for this decades old bookshop and unique century-old library.
This has been an extremely stressful time for all of us. One of the staff has successfully won a bullying claim at WorkSafe against two of the directors. Another has been on stress leave for much of the year. We are now trying to pick ourselves up to take the fight forward.
And the fight is not over. The Board has acted not only over the heads of staff but of its own members. Now one fifth of the MTS voting membership has formally called a special general meeting to remove the board. Members are shocked at what has been done in their name but without their knowledge.
We hope that sense will prevail and our beautiful library and shop will reopen — and that Melbourne Theosophical Society itself again becomes an active spiritual beacon for seekers everywhere.
Watch this space.