McKay’s Used Bookstore will officially close on May 3 after being a staple in the Knoxville community since 1985. Only half-empty shelves and saddened customers remain behind the doors that have brought warmth and familiarity to Knoxville for the past four decades.

Although McKay’s has not explicitly mentioned it, customers and onlookers have speculated that ongoing union disputes may have prompted the closure.

On the company’s website, the only explanation for the location’s closure is that “the property was sold.”

A hospitality group that owns other properties in the area bought the McKay’s property, according to the Knox County Register of Deeds, but has not stated its plans.

The McKay’s Knoxville location unionized in November 2022, making it the only McKay’s location to do so.

Since then, union members have been bargaining for a contract with McKay’s that would outline how workers would be treated.

The Communications Workers of America Local 3805, which represents McKay’s Knoxville employees, has filed six unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board. One claims that McKay’s announced the closing “in retaliation against its employees’ selection of CWA as their bargaining representative and to chill organizing activity at its other stores,” according to WATE News.

Over 50 employees, some of whom have worked there for more than 20 years, will lose their jobs following the closure.

Jaxx Fox has worked at McKay’s for over 11 years and is a member of the CWA Local 3805 bargaining committee.

“I started how everybody did — cashier, greeter — then I ended up becoming the toy director, stepped down to go to grad school at UT, and my final title is hardware specialist,” Fox said.

But on Wednesday, Feb. 26, Fox and their coworkers’ everyday lives were upended.

“We literally found out 15 minutes before they announced to the public, and they sent an email out to us, so it’s been very upsetting for everyone working here,” Fox said. “Whether they were part of the union or not, as well as many community members, (they) have felt like the rug has been pulled out from underneath (them).”

There are other specialty stores in the area that McKay’s workers have been pointing customers to — including Grindhouse Video, Book Eddie and Nirvana Comics — but none are as broad as McKay’s.

“I think there’s going to be a really big hole in the market that I hope that smaller businesses and people who are actually local will fill,” Fox said.

Other than McKay’s huge selection of books, games, records and toys, the welcoming employees are what make McKay’s feel like home to so many, and that is what Fox will miss the most.

“I mean, my coworkers range from, like, 18 to, I think, like, 70 plus, so it’s like, I have coworkers over generations, and we all have very different personalities and different experiences through life,” Fox said.“We’ve really looked out for each other, and that’s still continuing, trying to hook each other up with jobs and make sure that everybody is getting the resources they can.”

Some McKay’s employees have already left to seek new work, while others are purposefully staying until the day of the closing.

The McKay’s environment shifted immediately after the announcement, and employees are still trying to process what it will mean for the coming weeks.

“It feels like we’ve been going to work in purgatory,” Fox said. “ … I mean, they were following the WARN Act, which gives 60 days, but the activity and how they’ve decided to finish it out has felt very strange and aimless.”

McKay’s has not announced plans for reopening a location in Knoxville, but Fox knows this is not the end of the story.

“There could have been other solutions, but a lot of us feel, regardless of why ultimately it was, it felt like a pretty short-term solution, or a short-sighted solution for a variety of problems,” Fox said.

While the reasoning behind the location’s closure may never be fully confirmed, the union is taking the labor charges to court and continuing the fight for accountability.