TEACHERS FOR CHOICE Believes Mulgrew Came Up Short

Still recommend Leaving the UFT

From Michael Kane & TEACHERS FOR CHOICE

9-4-21

NYC Workers, please send this to your union bosses. They all need to read this.

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TEACHERS FOR CHOICE does not believe UFT President Michael Mulgrew’s announcement that he is moving to arbitration over medical and religious exemptions to vaccination supported our constituency enough to stop recommending NYC educators to leave the union. We stand by our call for UFT members to leave the union right now.

Get full instructions on how to leave HERE

We continue this recommendation for the following reasons:

1. Mr. Mulgrew and UFT have done nothing to attempt to bring back the weekly COVID testing option in lieu of vaccination. Practically all other localities throughout New York have this option – why won’t Mulgrew fight for NYC educators to have this option?
2. 15,000 NYC Educators are currently unvaccianted yet Mulgrew only discussed medical and religious exemptions to vaccination. What about the large amount of educators that fall in neither camp but don’t want to get this EUA product?
3. Mr. Mulgrew and UFT attorneys are wrong that NYC can legally mandate the COVID vaccine at this time. The only vaccine that might be legal to mandate in NYC is the Pfizer Comirnaty, but no one can find this vaccine anywhere in NYC. The only one available is the BioNTech vaccine.
4. BioNTech is under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) and under federal law everyone has the right to refuse an EUA product. One of the reasons you have the right to refuse is because EUA products are uniquely indemnified by the federal government where if anyone is maimed or killed by the product no legal action can be taken.
5. The Comiranty vaccine has no such legal indemnification at this time and thus Pfizer has an incentive to NOT place this product onto the market.
6. So Mulgrew and UFT’s fundamental position that NYC is “within their legal rights” to mandate the COVID vaccine is completely wrong!
7. The fact Mulgrew has gotten this fundamental fact wrong is a critical dereliction of duty.
8. TEACHERS FOR CHOICE firmly believes it was Randi Weingarten’s announcement on MEET THE PRESS that AFT was going to work with employers to implement vaccine mandates which directly led to Mayor de Blasio and NYC making this mandate. We firmly believe this too was an extreme dereliction of duty on Weingarten’s part and looks particularly bad since it occurred 1 week after her wife was appointed to work in the Executive Branch by President Biden.
9. Fighting only to preserve the medical and religious exemption to vaccination is an extremely low bar of protection. The union doesn’t give us this protection federal and state law does. I pay union dues for more than just protection under the law. I pay for the full weight and influence of my union.
10. Mulgrew is talking a lot about fighting to preserve the medical exemption to vaccination but not the religious exemption.
11. In Chalkbeat Mulgrew was quoted as saying their will be very few religious exemptions to vaccination because all the world’s main religious leaders support vaccination. This shows Mulgrew’s (and the UFT’s) complete lack of understanding of what a religious exemption is. In America under the law it does not matter what any relgious leader says or believes. It is the beliefs of the individual that is supreem. This has been firmly established by the courts.
12. The fact that Mulgrew is now forced to fight for his members rights to a religious exemption to vaccination is ironic to many of us. The UFT remained completely quiet when 26,000 children were kicked out of school in New York when the religious exemption to vaccination for CHILDREN was revoked on June 13, 2019. So adults should have the right to religious freedoms but not their children? Our lawyer Harvard-trained progressive Democrat Michael Sussman is the lead attorney suing NY state over that illegal repeal on behalf of many parents.
13. When Mulgrew called me the night before his town hall he said that the movement to have rank-&-file members leave their unions was funded by two billionaires. This has much truth to it, but what I don’t think he understands is that the TEACHERS FOR CHOICE movement to leave the union has nothing to do with billionaires. It has everything to do with working class NYC educators who can see the UFT helping to end our careers. That’s it. That’s all this is. Only an idiot, a coward, or a slave will pay someone to get them fired.
14. Mulgrew does not want to lose thousands of members due to de Blasio changing the rules mid-contract. However it is unclear if he is fighting to keep us on payroll or IN THE CLASSROOM WHERE WE BELONG. During his August townhall Mulgrew said people needed to stop saying unvaccinated people should not be inside of school buildings. I appreciated that comment. However now it is unclear if Mulgrew is willing to put his money where his mouth is.
15. Mulgrew has made ZERO mention of booster shots. If anyone thinks this move to force vaccinate adults in New York is a one-time deal I have a bridge formerly named after a recently disgraced governor’s father to sell to you.