Teachers need vaccines — and their unions are getting them
by Alyce McFadden
Since the start of the school year, in September, Rhonda Israel has been teaching in person, sharing a classroom with kindergartners and first graders in a New York City neighborhood that was once among the hardest hit by the coronavirus.
On Feb. 11, she got her second dose of COVID-19 vaccine, joining the ranks of just over 500,000 New Yorkers inoculated against the virus. She knows she’s lucky.
“When I tell people like I've been vaccinated, and they know I'm a teacher, but they're just like, ‘Wow, how did that happen?’ And I say, ‘the union,’” Israel told me. “If it wasn't for the union, I would not have this vaccine. It would have been a lot, a lot more difficult.”
Israel is a speech and language teacher at PS 14 in Queens, New York. As a member of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), Israel was able to sign up for an appointment just days after New York teachers became eligible for vaccination, thanks to the union’s vaccine matching program.
Even though Israel said her life won’t change much—she isn’t ready to go back to eating inside restaurants, she will continue to wear a mask every time she goes outside, and her classroom will still have to be sanitized multiple times a day—the vaccine means a lot to her.
“Where I work, it was the epicenter. Corona, Queens: it's a very congested neighborhood, a lot of people had it. And yeah, I mean, there was definitely fear,” Israel said. “So I do have a sense of relief, a little bit.”
Of the 130,000 UFT members employed by New York’s Department of Education, 27,000 opted-in to the union’s vaccine program, which matches educators with available appointments through NYU Langone Health or EmblemHealth providers in their areas.
Israel said that she’s heard frustrating stories from non-union friends who are technically eligible for a dose but have been unable to secure an appointment through providers' websites.
“They said it was like, every time you went on, there was just no appointment. Then there might have been an appointment for like a minute, and then it's gone,” Israel said.
The UFT program reduces the burden on vaccine-eligible workers by doing the behind-the-scenes work to match members with vaccination appointments. Israel enrolled on Jan. 12 and indicated her interest in getting the vaccine as soon as possible. Two days later, a provider reached out to her via email with an appointment at a clinic just minutes from where she lives.
On Feb. 25, some 60,000 New York City middle school students returned to classrooms for some in person instruction, joining Israel and other special education teachers who have been working in school buildings since September.
Teachers trust unions—so do parents
Conservative pundits and lawmakers are doing their best to scapegoat teachers unions for the challenges that come with remote learning. Republicans have their own best interests to consider: winning back college-educated white suburban parents who voted Republican in the past but broke for President Joe Biden in November. Placing the blame on unions and workers, they think, will bring desperate parents out to vote for them in 2022.
During a Fox News talk show, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) blamed union advocacy for the 85 percent of students whose school moved to a partially or fully remote curriculum.
"When is the union going to actually care about teaching our kids?" he asked. "They have all these unreasonable demands.”
But voters—parents in particular—don’t find unions’ demands all that unreasonable.
A February poll conducted by Data for Progress shared exclusively with Strikewave finds that 86 percent of likely voters with school-aged children agree that educators should receive priority for the vaccine.
On March 2, Biden called on state governments to open vaccination programs to teachers immediately.
Parents trust teachers and the unions that represent them. Fifty-four percent of parents say teachers unions should have a voice in deciding when to bring children back to school in person and even more parents (77 percent) trust teachers themselves. Fewer respondents (only around 48 percent) said they trusted the federal government to make that determination.
New York State has no record of how many teachers have received doses of the vaccine. Without such data, it’s almost impossible to gauge the extent that states and municipalities are keeping apace with Biden’s directive, which sets the end of March as the deadline to get teachers vaccinated.
Based on the experience of New York union members who have been eligible for the shots far longer than teachers in most other states, UFT President Michael Mulgrew said in a statement that demand continues to far exceed supply.
"Even putting the most positive spin on the city’s numbers, there are tens of thousands of staff who have not yet had access to the vaccine,” Mulgrew said.
Across the country, teachers unions are leading the fight to connect educators with vaccination appointments. Bumping teachers into the priority eligibility group was a major focus for Massachusetts teachers unions, who called Biden’s decision a “great relief.” In Pennsylvania, union leaders successfully pressured Gov. Tom Wolf to set aside doses of the newly-approved Johnson & Johnson vaccine for school staff and in Washington, teachers unions are lobbying Gov. Jay Inslee and Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan to meet teachers where they are: schools.
"Site-based vaccination is important for vaccinating the school personnel for second shots, rather than having staff taking time from vital work to schedule and be vaccinated," Washington State lawmakers wrote in a letter to Durkan, backing unions’ efforts.
Throughout the pandemic ‘the union had my back’
Beyond vaccination, unions have provided invaluable resources to its members throughout the pandemic. Last spring, in the early days of the crisis, Israel said she turned to mindfulness programming and meditation classes provided by UFT to make it through the stress and uncertainty of remote work.
“I knew that the union had my back,” Israel said. “I have to tell you, remote learning, it's straining. I used to go to bed and have back pain every night.”
And when one of Israel’s co-workers died of complications caused by COVID-19, she took the UFT up on its offered support and counseling.
“There was a lot of support and a lot of groups. And I think I even spoke like once or twice, maybe with someone at the end, in a special program,” Israel said.
No one knows precisely how many teachers have died since the outbreak of the coronavirus arrived in the United States. A poll of National Education Association (NEA) members found that one in four of the unions’ members know someone (a colleague, a family member, a friend) who died of COVID-19. Four educators in Alabama died of coronavirus within 48 hours in January. In Texas, a married couple who both worked in schools died on the same day.
These are the stakes for the UFT as it rushes to vaccinate its members. Just over 8,000 UFT members have secured vaccination appointments through the program so far.
Alison Gendar, UFT’s Deputy Press Secretary, said that the bottom line is: “like everyone else, we need more vaccine.”
For her part, Israel is doing what she can to help by sharing her own experience with anyone who’ll listen.
“I have my card and I'm very proud. And I own it. And I do tell people I've been vaccinated,” she said. “I think it does make me feel better.”
Alyce McFadden is a freelance journalist based in New York.