MSNBC -“The sudden dismissal of federal employees at the JFK Library forced the museum to close today,” the JFK Library Foundation said in a statement. “As the Foundation that supports the JFK Library, we are devastated by this news and will continue to support our colleagues and the Library.”
At least five visitor services employees — that’s half the department — were summarily dismissed Tuesday, their careers sacrificed on the altar of President Donald Trump’s ego...
When the library reopened Wednesday... the firings left the facility without anyone who’d been trained to handle ticketing and that admission would be free until such training occurs.
However temporary, what happened at the JFK Library wasn’t just a closure; it was a strike on America’s historical memory, ordered by a man painfully aware that he is the anti-Kennedy. Even though the firings were the result of a scattershot approach from Trump, the truth remains that he appears to be haunted by the specter of a predecessor he can never eclipse and has an animus toward anything that bears Kennedy’s name, including the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
While probationary employees were fired across the federal government, the mass firing’s effects on JFK Library are a reminder of what’s at risk in such a thoughtless, cavalier approach to personnel decisions. It’s one of Boston’s most popular educational destinations and a testament to Kennedy’s enduring popularity. (Kennedy consistently ranks high, and higher than Trump, in C-SPAN’s presidential surveys, and Trump appears to believe he’s the best president ever.) Now the library’s core functions are at risk. The terminated employees were crucial for visitor relations, ticket sales and tour management. Their absence threatens to strangle the institution’s ability to serve researchers, process collections and conduct scholarly work by potentially reassigning archivists to front desk duty. More
No comments:
Post a Comment