Reply to Mandatory vaccines for teachers/staff and eligible students

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=jsteele][quote=Anonymous]Ok well here we have it. The AFT (the national union organization of which WTU is a local chapter) is against mandatory vaccination.

"“In order for everyone to feel safe and welcome in their workplaces, vaccinations must be negotiated between employers and workers, not coerced,” Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a statement."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/07/26/mandatory-vaccinations-urged-health-workers/

I'm not sure if WTU would ever go against their national, but seems unlikely. I supposed there's wiggle room to claim that all they want is to "bargain" over mandatory vaccination, but I can't really see the distinction between bargaining over it and opposing it. If a union member would like to come here and explain, I'm all ears. [/quote]

As if often the case here, an anti-WTU poster has taken a single sentence from a longer statement (admittedly the single sentence quoted by the Post) and spun it in the most anti-WTU light possible. I think the it is worth reading the entire Weingarten statement which is quite short:

[quote]“More [b]than 90 percent of the AFT’s educators and school staff[/b], and nearly 80 percent of our healthcare professionals, are vaccinated against COVID-19, and those numbers are only increasing. The COVID-19 vaccine is the most important tool we have to protect ourselves; our families; and the students, patients and communities we serve. As the delta variant spreads and COVID-19 cases rise in unvaccinated communities, we are reminded just how unpredictable this virus is and how critical vaccinations are to keeping our schools open for in-person learning and preventing our hospitals from becoming overwhelmed. With ICUs once again filling up and many reaching capacity, our nurses and healthcare professionals in particular are exhausted and anxious at the prospect of another COVID-19 surge.

“In order for everyone to feel safe and welcome in their workplaces, vaccinations must be negotiated between employers and workers, not coerced. We believe strongly that everyone should get vaccinated unless they have a medical or religious exception, and [b]that this should be a mandatory subject of negotiation for employers[/b] to keep their employees safe and build trust. But healthcare professionals are 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. This makes vaccine advocacy more important than ever, and medical professionals must be on the front lines of correcting the rampant vaccine disinformation campaign that is costing American lives.”[/quote]

The bolding is mine. As you can read, the ATF strongly supports vaccinations and believes that mandatory vaccinations should be subject to negotiation. Significantly, the ATF says that 90 percent of their teachers and school staff are vaccinated. Moreover, the single sentence quoted by the PP (with the added summation that "here we have it"), appears to have been in regard to nurses rather than teachers. Finally, the PP's conclusion that the ATF opposes mandatory vaccinations is completely and utterly wrong.

Edit to add the link to the statement that I forgot to include:

https://www.aft.org/press-release/aft-president-randi-weingarten-says-healthcare-worker-vaccines-are-critical

[/quote]

I'm not "anti WTU," Jeff.  I'm pro-keeping-schools-open. Nothing you cited demonstrates that unions are in favor of mandatory vaccination.  Randi Weingarten is the AFT (American Federation of Teacher's Union) president -- she was obviously talking about teachers, in the overall context of public employee vaccination requirements.  And claiming that "mandatory vaccination should be subject to negotiation" while at the same time saying that mandatory vaccination will lead to a parade of horribles (nurses quitting) is obviously being against mandatory vaccination.  AFT opposes mandatory vaccination and that's what the statement you cited means. [/quote]

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