The head of the American Federation of Teachers signaled on Thursday the powerful union is rethinking its opposition to Covid-19 vaccine mandates for educators.
“We’re considering all alternatives, including looking at vaccine mandates,” Randi Weingarten told POLITICO in an interview, a little more than a week after the union president said vaccinations should be negotiated between employers and workers but “not coerced.”
“Our view has been that to create trust, [and] to start the school year off right with our communities, we should continue on the voluntary route and continue to persuade people,” Weingarten said.
But she said the union is “rethinking this and talking to our leadership” about changes because of the virulence of the Delta coronavirus variant, the range of schoolchildren who aren't yet eligible for vaccines and the Food and Drug Administration’s anticipated move to fully approve Pfizer’s two-dose Covid-19 vaccine by early September.
“The single biggest reason I hear repeatedly about hesitancy is that the FDA hasn't approved vaccines, and that approval seems to be forthcoming,” Weingarten said. “So, we're in the midst of talking to people around the country, talking to our leadership around the country about this, because we believe that this is about keeping everybody safe.”
Key context: Weingarten has promoted vaccine uptake and recently announced that “more than 90 percent” of the 1.7 million-member union’s educators and school staff were vaccinated against the coronavirus — along with “nearly 80 percent” of the union’s health care workers.
Still, while she repeated her view that everyone should get vaccinated unless they have a medical or religious exemption last week, she said mandates should be a mandatory subject of negotiation between employers and employees.
Health workers, she said last week, were also concerned “that mandating vaccines outside contract negotiation will only result in more people leaving the bedside at a time when staffing levels are already low from the trauma of the past year.”
New York State’s largest teacher’s union has also said it will oppose efforts to require educators to get vaccinated against Covid-19 before they return to school next month.
“We would support local efforts to encourage more vaccinations,” New York State United Teachers said this week. “What we have not supported is a vaccine mandate.”
‘Deep distrust’: “The reason we have focused so much on doing this volitionally is because there's such deep distrust that this is going to create yet another battlefield, not just in terms of educators but families and others.” Weingarten said. “That's why we've been hesitant to have this discussion."
"The difference now is the Delta variant is surging," she said. "And it's very virulent, and there's a group of kids that can't get the vaccine."
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August 06, 2021 at 05:43AM
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AFT president says union is now ‘looking at vaccine mandates’ - POLITICO
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