Leaders gotta lead on vaccines

Yet another reason to mourn the late AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka: he was a union leader who did not hesitate to encourage working people to get vaccinated.

Trumka was forthright to the end. On July 27, he was asked whether he supported a vaccine mandate. Many union leaders (including, surprisingly, the usually tough-minded Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers) have been hesitant to endorse such mandates, neglecting their responsibility to protect members’ health in deference to a few crank anti-vaxxers among the rank and file. Not Trumka. “Yes we do,” Trumka told C-SPAN. “If you come back in, and you’re not vaccinated, everybody in that workplace is jeopardized.”

Trumka managed be a voice for workers and to cooperate well with the broad Democratic Party coalition that elected Joe Biden, no easy task in an anti-labor environment. A part of Trumka's legacy is higher public enthusiasm for labor unions than we've seen in many years.

According to a Gallup poll, nearly 50 percent of nonunion workers told M.I.T. researchers that they would join a union if given the opportunity.

That's not going to hold up if union leaders decide their job is to stick up for the fraction of their members who are hesitant or refuseniks about COVID vaccination. I understand that labor leaders win their jobs via internal union elections and have to represent all their members -- but coddling vaccine holdouts forfeits respect from a public whose majority wants the people they interact with to join them in tamping down the coronavirus.

I'm not surprised that the unions which represent cops and jailers are some of the most resistant. San Francisco plans a vaccine requirement for city employees. According to the Chronicle: 

The San Francisco Sheriff’s Department will see a wave of resignations if the city enforces its policy requiring vaccinations for its employees, according to the Deputy Sheriff’s Association, the union representing sheriff’s deputies.

Mandated vaccines, “will result in law enforcement officers and fire fighters retiring early and seeking employment elsewhere,” the union wrote on its Facebook page Thursday. “Public safety of San Francisco has turned into the Wild West and will get worse when officers quit due to the vaccine mandate.”

... Union leaders with the city’s fire and police departments did not confirm whether their members were also considering resigning in light of the order, but both said they wished the city had engaged labor leaders at the front end of the process. About 17% of police and 9.5% of fire department employees were not vaccinated as of [August 6] 

It's hard not to feel that these militarized city employees too often act like entitled thugs instead of public servants. 

But it's not just the local cop unions. It's also far too many ordinary public employee and teacher unions.

... In Hawaii, where new daily reported cases rose 103 percent in the past week according to a Washington Post tracker, Gov. David Ige (D) on Thursday announced requirements for all state and county employees to disclose their vaccination status or take weekly tests. Employees who don’t comply could be fired.

As Hawaii reported 655 new coronavirus cases on Thursday — its highest daily total of the pandemic — a joint statement from six Hawaii public unions including firefighters, police and teachers said that although they strongly encourage vaccinations, the governor’s emergency proclamation would impact members’ working conditions.

Unions fight hard to win tolerable working conditions from a system in which too much human labor is valued only as profit for managers and bosses. And at this moment, they are a vital component of a fractious public trying to move beyond a deadly pandemic. Instead of standing up for their hold-outs, labor should be loudly proclaiming broad solidarity and promoting vaccination for all.

GREAT NEWS: on Sunday teacher's union leader Randi Weingarten came out for vaccine mandates in view of arrival of the Delta variant, That's solidarity.