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NYC Teachers Prepared To Strike If Schools Aren't Safe To Reopen, Union Head Says
By
Sophia Chang
Published Aug 19, 2020
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By
Sophia Chang
Published Aug 19, 2020
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New York City teachers are prepared to strike if schools reopen before they feel it’s safe -- a date certain to be later than the purported first day of school on September 10th, the union president said on Wednesday.
“If we feel that a school is not safe, we are prepared to go to court and to take a job action,” said United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew at a press conference.
While an official first day of school has not been announced, Mayor Bill de Blasio has repeatedly referred to September 10th as the possible day that students return to school under the city’s blended learning model.
New York City’s Public Employees Fair Employment Act, commonly called the Taylor Law, makes it illegal for teachers to strike - but Mulgrew said that’s a risk he’s willing to face.
“If the court deems that we are breaking the Taylor Law so be it. We will deal with the ramifications of it,” Mulgrew said. Those consequences could include legal court challenges.
The threat of a strike could be avoided if the city delays reopening the 1,600 New York City public schools until the UFT’s list of requirements were met for each school, Mulgrew said, and added this could be done by individual schools rather than system-wide.
Chief among the union’s requirements is a demand that all students and staff be tested for COVID-19 ten days before the first day of school, or submit proof of antibodies within a two-month window.
This request is complicated by New York City’s testing result lags that currently can take up to 10 to 14 days as labs are overwhelmed with samples -- sure to be compounded by more than 700,000 students who are thus far expected to participate in blended learning.
If the city agreed to the UFT’s demands immediately, Mulgrew said schools could possibly open by “mid-September, October 1st...if things were perfect or close to perfect.”
He added, “There's no such thing as everything going perfect, especially here in New York City…(but) I definitely think we could get that done. But that's going to require that willingness to let's get this done.”
While the city has released health and safety protocols and a contact tracing plan for its school reopening plan, Mulgrew said they’re inadequate and the union has more rigorous protocols that should be adopted by the city.
“New York City is one of the few places that is qualified at this moment to try to do this, but we all know also New York City is at a high risk, extremely high risk of doing it wrong, and paying a major price, which we do not want to happen again,” he said.
The union has deployed more than 100 investigators to review the Department of Education’s school facilities “for health and safety measures that include the presence of a school nurse, a six-foot separation between student desks, sufficient masks and other protective equipment, working ventilation systems to reduce the concentration of air-borne virus particles, and an isolation/quarantine room for students who develop symptoms of infection,” the UFT said in a press release. Last week, de Blasio announced every school would have a full-time nurse on site.
“This is fear mongering,” said DOE spokesperson Miranda Barbot in response to the Mulgrew's announcement. "We spend hours a day, literally, talking to the UFT about policies and procedures and have delivered on a robust and practical testing protocol, a nurse in every building, and a 30-day supply of PPE for every school. We have the most comprehensive and rigorous plan in the country, coupled with record-low infection rates. When we see a full plan that is rooted in data and science, we’ll review it—until then, it seems like they just don’t want to say the quiet part out loud: they don’t want to open schools at all for students and families."
De Blasio shut down public school buildings on March 17th after growing pressure from parents, teachers and staff, and with the threat of a "sick out" organized by a faction of teachers. The DOE said nearly 80 employees have died from COVID-19.
The UFT’s call for more testing and personal protective equipment comes as the state is preparing to slash funding for school districts because of budget shortfalls -- the Alliance for Quality Education said New York City stands to lose up to $2 billion in state funding this year.
Governor Andrew Cuomo, who on August 7th gave his authorization for all school districts to reopen in person, nevertheless remarked on Wednesday that reopening in September could be “risky and problematic.”
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COVID-19
schools
Sophia Chang
Sophia Chang is a former WNYC and Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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