This is in the NY Daily News:
Roughly 700 city educators got pink slips last week from the Education Department over their refusal to comply with the vaccine mandate — and the teachers union is arguing they shouldn’t be canned without disciplinary hearings.
The hundreds of classroom teachers and paraprofessionals who received termination notices are unvaccinated, failed to win an exemption from the mandate on medical or religious grounds and declined to go on unpaid leave until September, according to the United Federation of Teachers.
But the union is arguing that the staffers still have the right to undergo a disciplinary hearing before they’re officially let go.
“While the [ Education Department] appears to believe that such people can be summarily terminated, the UFT believes that these individuals cannot be terminated without due process,” a union spokeswoman said.
The union says the unvaxxed teachers should get a hearing known as a “3020a,” which allows tenured educators to make their case to an arbitrator before getting fired. It’s unclear if such a hearing would result in the educators keeping their jobs.
We have been asked by two of the impacted teachers to help out. Some of you may be surprised to hear that we have assisted. In one case we have spoken at length to one of the lawyers involved to try to help someone keep a job. While we favor the mandate, we believe exemptions were unreasonably narrow. In addition, tenured teacher discipline falls under State Education Law 3020-a and that is how it needs to be carried out here too. Paras can only be terminated if there is just cause.
I personally would prefer that everyone get vaccinated as with a vaccine and booster the chances of dying from Covid are roughly one in a million in a week according to the NY Times. I am also very disappointed that public health has become so political. Having said that, if a doctor says it is not medically advisable to get the jabs, then that needs to be seriously considered. Deeply held religious views should be respected as well.
