August 26, 2021
Hundreds of people rallied Wednesday afternoon on Broadway alongside City Hall Park to protest workplace COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Michael Kane
Michael Kane, a NYC High School Teacher and Founder of Teachers for Choice, renounced his union membership in the UFT at the rally.
From his news release:
“The UFT is no longer a union. What union in history has ever actively worked to have their members placed on unpaid leave or fired?” said Kane.
“This is one of the saddest days of my life. I’ve been a progressive unionist since before I was ever in a union. My father was a bricklayer, my mother a letter carrier, I have a dozen teachers in my family, but I refuse to continue to give one more dime to a corrupt union that represents the interests of a political party over the interests of its membership.”
Kane’s public announcement comes in response to Mayor de Blasio requiring forced vaccination of all teachers and DOE employees. In response, UFT President Michael Mulgrew has thrown his hands in the air saying the city is “within their legal rights.”
“First off there are tons of things mayors have wanted to force on NYC teachers that were within their legal rights that the UFT vehemently fought off. Second, even NYSUT President Andy Pallotta is opposed to forced vaccination of teachers in this nature. Third, forced vaccination is a wildly unpopular position. We have a petition that is one of the top petitions on Change.org with over 37,000 signatures against forced vacciantion of educators. Lastly, the lame-duck mayor is not within his legal rights to force this mandate at this time and our attorneys will prove that,” said Kane.
Nurses and Court Officers also weighed in against the vaccine mandate. The crowd was a mixture of teachers, anti-vaxxers, Labor activists, MAGAs, and parents of school kids.
Some of the protesters carried signs indicating they were not opposed to the vaccine, per se. But they drew the line at making vaccinations mandatory to keep a job. A testing option should be available to those who do not wish to take the vaccine, they suggested. The Pfizer vaccine was approved by the FDA just this week putting more pressure on resisters, some of whom had made the jab’s EUA the centerpiece of their opposition.
