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November 19, 2021
While individuals and entire groups out there deny either the COVID-19 virus itself outright or its deadly impact, NYC Transit workers have no such luxury. Over 160 MTA employees/mostly transit workers, have died, many friends and colleagues. While such deniers belong to another conversation, their logic needs to be noted. They invariably rest their case on denying science and any information or facts that do not comport with their worldview. That world consists of endless rabbit holes of mostly senseless, circular arguments. But we should also admit that many individuals and groups out there oppose wearing masks and do so on the grounds of personal choice and freedom. Here, the implicit logic must be noted as it props up elsewhere. The logic is that individual choice should trump regulation, regardless of origin, impact, or science and purpose. In important respects, this argument disregarding science enjoins that of COVID deniers. But, unfortunately, the logic – individual choice thumps regulation – can be a very slippery slope. In many parts of the country, protest movements have been spawned with threats and attacks against parents and children who wear masks. What is that, if not political, and some plan that doesn’t have anything to do with freedom of choice? Certainly not when someone espouses individual freedom but then threatens the lives of those who exercise it in ways not approved by others.
Finally, as a practical matter, unions have fought for decades for regulatory measures and standards, from Personal Protective Equipments (PPE) to policies, procedures, and engineered solutions to protect workers’ health and safety of workers and the public. If anything, too many unions were late or absent and not forceful enough in bringing all pressure to bear to protect their members through most of the pandemic.
Yet, no one can reasonably dispute that wearing masks, under the current conditions, properly falls under required PPE. Yet some argue that too should be subordinate to their rights and personal choice – i.e., their “right” to infect others. Just for this conversation, we consider appropriate preventive measures as falling into the categories of invasive and non-invasive measures, with the former being the most controversial. The opposition to non-invasive measures to combat the pandemic is wholly irrational and absurd. But keep the underlying logic in mind – because it lives on.
So, let’s move on to invasive measures such as the COVID-19 vaccine mandate. From the onset, let me state that those who have lived their lives opposed to taking vaccines or whose religion prohibits it should be accommodated for it goes to their deeply held personal belief system, which should be respected and defended. Unions should not compound their past failures of failing to militantly police and protect to ensure that that happens.
But before folks sign themselves into that category, they should consider that vaccine mandates have been required for school attendance in the U.S. and almost everywhere else–it’s called your Immunization Card. We all have them buried somewhere in our personal belongings. That’s how smallpox, measles, and a host of other diseases have been suppressed in the population, and for most international travel for many decades. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, for all arms of the U.S. military, as many as up to 17 vaccines (seventeen!!!) were required to deploy. I don’t know how so many would have possibly evaded such requirements. So, without venturing down rabbit holes about “messenger RNA” or discussing the very valid concerns about abuse and profiteering by the pharmaceutical companies where strong controls are entirely lacking and are needed, such vaccine mandates are hardly new.
All of which begs the question: What is this all about, and how did this big hullabaloo come about? I’ll address that next, but there are clues right in front of your eyes, right before you: Look at the most vociferous organizers of the anti-vaccine protests and check to see what else they oppose, and you will find that they are coming after YOU, your loved ones and your rights, in the end. You may be marching for some other agenda and under some other banner, neither of which is about your interests. You may be rallying and marching under the agenda of enemies of Social Justice, Equality, and Human Rights. And there would be nothing progressive or progressively militant about that!
This article first appeared in N.Y. Amsterdam News, November 4, 2021.
Roger Toussaint, former President of the Transport Workers Union, Local 100, who led the 2005 NYC Transit Strike, is a founding member of the Caribbean Awareness Committee, NYC.
Clear and absolutely correct. The anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers see it as a big conspiracy. One quibble, expansion actually: none of us can really, scientifically evaluate arguments for and against vaccinations, we just aren’t technically equipped. We rely on the advice of people we trust, i.e. scientists, and our experience with other vaccines, and indeed our experience of the achievements of science. The irony is that there are conspiracies by the wealthy and the large businesses and governments, many in plain sight, but those conspiracies aren’t the ones they believe – I think because their narratives aren’t “exciting” enough. That’s why people believe the most outlandish conspiracies, like the return of Bobby Kennedy or that vaccinations will implant a chip that allows the state to monitor your every deed. That would be amazing, wouldn’t it? Like aliens and Area 52. The stuff of action movies, or even horror movies, which everyone loves. The difference between them and others is that they want to live in that movie world to such an extent that they convince themselves they’re real. What no one bothers with is the real way in which states and corporations monitor your every thought and deed, through your digital footprint, your social media, emails, credit card purchases, cell phones which track your conversations, movement, etc. That’s the real Big Brother.
Let me first and foremost state that I am vaccinated and that I am a card-carrying UFT worker. My main point of concern with this article is the writer’s seemingly pro-mandate absolutist position. I believe that unions such as the UFT should be careful what they are allowing, in terms of infringement of workers rights. I challenge the Department of Education’s vaccine mandate although I willingly vaccinated way before the mandate. And I have vaccinated my school-age children who are attending NYC public schools.
I believe the UFT should have stood up a bit stronger in defending the jobs of teachers who hadn’t yet decided on vaccination. I fear that this carte blanche approach that Roger Toussaint and other unionists are taking can leave the door open for greater infringements of rights. As James Baldwin et al have warned us in other contexts, ‘if they come for you in the morning they’ll come for me in the afternoon’. By virtue of the mandate, many African American teachers have lost their jobs. I am sure you’ll be quick to agree that there are strong historical bases for vaccine skepticism within the black communities.
We have to consider that NYC vaccination/Covid worker education was far from adequate, both from the standpoint of what the DOE and the UFT could have potentially done. Let’s be reminded also that the school system is already in a state of virtual district apartheid. It is the kind of apartheid though that sees mostly white teachers teaching majority black students in the urban areas. Mostly White teachers teaching brown and white students in the suburbs. And, an almost 100% white teachers teaching white students in the white rural communities. There is a doubly unfortunate disparity in the racial vaccination rates. When the 2021 new year began, the vaccination rates were skewed in the following directions of concern: “Of nearly 300,000 city residents who received one dose and whose race was recorded, about 48 percent were white, 15 percent were Latino, 15 percent were Asian and 11 percent were Black. Latino and Black residents were underrepresented: The city’s population is roughly 29 percent Latino and 24 percent Black.” (NYT Sept. 29, 2021) I fear the result of this mandate will worsen education apartheid lines in our public schools.
So where do we draw the workers rights line? Are we allowing the vaccine issue to further draw the color line in the work place? Couldn’t we demand a longer conditional approach with greater worker education?
Let me state up-front I am triple jabbed. I had my booster two weeks ago. I’m not a fan of the Daily Mail but Dominic Lawson is a serious journalist. His article from 22 November 2021: “It’s no cause for Schadenfreude… but anti-vax Germans are paying a deadly price for their obsession with crackpot health theories” has a really interesting stat based on real life data in the UK.
He state: “… The jabs remain highly effective against serious illness. A startlingly clear demonstration was revealed in figures released by the [UK] Office for National Statistics covering the period from January to September 2021: they showed that, adjusted for age, the mortality rate for the unvaccinated with Covid-19 was 849.7 per 100,000, compared with 26.2 per 100,000 for those who were ‘fully vaccinated’. … ”
What that says is if you compare a vaccinated person and an unvaccinated person – the unvaccinated person is 32x more likely to die.
Link to article is: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10228457/DOMINIC-LAWSON-no-cause-Schadenfreude-anti-vax-Germany-paying-deadly-price.html