A Federal Judge Blocks A Vaccine Mandate For NYC Teachers

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: NPR

NEW YORK — New York City schools have been temporarily blocked from enforcing a vaccine mandate for teachers and other workers by a federal appeals judge just days before it was to take effect. The worker mandate for the nation's largest school system was set to go into effect Monday. But late Friday, a judge for the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a temporary injunction and referred the case to a three-judge panel on an expedited basis.

Department of Education spokesperson Danielle Filson said officials are seeking a speedy resolution by the circuit court next week. "We're confident our vaccine mandate will continue to be upheld once all the facts have been presented, because that is the level of protection our students and staff deserve," Filson said in an email.

She said more than 82% of department employees have been vaccinated. While most school workers have been vaccinated, unions representing New York City principals and teachers warned that could still leave the 1 million student school system short of as many as 10,000 teachers, along with other staffers, such as cafeteria workers and school police officers.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has resisted calls to delay the mandate.

Read more: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/09/25/1040699321/nyc-teachers-vaccine-mandate-judge-blocks-schools

---

Short article and just heard this on the radio.

[PSPS]

1. A temporary block only until the full court looks at it next week.

[PortTack]

2. Exactly! Vaccine mandates have been around and by order of SCOTUS since 1905

See Jacobson vs Massachusetts

[BumRushDaShow]

4. From the radio report, it wasn't even going to be an en banc review (yet)

just a 3-judge panel to decide initially (which I think is standard practice). If whatever they decide is appealed with a request to have en banc review, then the full court will look at it.

[brooklynite]

14. It why does the Teacher's Union want it?

[NotHardly]

3. Now even the Federal Judges go all DeathSantis on us ... stupid mutherf**kers, is a Republican

I am now beginning to entertain the idea that Republicans simply want to kill as many people as possible, their own, and the rest of us are just collateral.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

5. The more things change...

1964
... the more they stay the same (not really -- the little girl is welcomed in the bottom picture).
2021

[oldsoftie]

6. Once again, the union wants to stop a needed directive.

And of COURSE its in NYC.
If they prevail, then anyone else can sue to get rid of their mandates as well.

[Scrivener7]

7. Ignorant statement. Since Pfizer was FDA approved, the NYC teacher's union has fought

to require vaccines. This has resulted in huge increases in the numbers of people vaccinated.

This is a request to delay the mandate so schools can stay open.

But go ahead. Let that knee jerk and blame the union. RepubliQans love it when we do that.

If the mandate WAS enforced right now and schools DID have to close, I'm sure that would be the union's fault too.

[PoliticAverse]

9. NYC, teachers union continue negotiations over COVID vaccine mandate

https://ny.chalkbeat.org/2021/9/8/22663061/nyc-teachers-union-negotiations-covid-vaccine-mandate

New York City will agree to keep teachers with vaccine exemptions on the job after their union filed a labor complaint over the issue, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday.

But negotiations continue over what will happen to teachers who aren’t vaccinated and don’t have a religious or medical exemption.

...

It’s unclear what the city or union have proposed would happen if teachers refuse to be vaccinated. The union did not respond to questions about whether its leaders would support removing those staffers from the payroll. Los Angeles and Chicago, the second and third largest school districts behind New York City, have made the vaccines mandatory for teachers to continue working.

[brooklynite]

15. Vaccines have been available for over a year. O excuse.

[Scrivener7]

18. Vaccines were not FDA approved and therefore could not be a work requirement.

[PoliticAverse]

8. The Union negotiated a contract with NYC and any change on the conditions of employment

could be opposed.

Based on current vaccination rates it looks like enforcement of the policy could result in the firing of thousands of employees covered by the contract(s).

[Scrivener7]

10. And if they didn't get the extension and the chaos ensued due to staffing shortages,

which would mean closing classrooms, overcrowding classrooms and putting kids at risk that way, possibly closing some schools, I'm sure the posters who are blaming the union for this requested extension would blame the union for the closures too.

You can't keep the schools from chaos and overcrowding of classrooms AND enforce the mandate this coming Monday. You can't have both. They are trying to extend the deadline so they can avoid either of these situations.

Do you have a better idea?

[PoliticAverse]

11. This issue needed to be dealt with before schools opened but, in typical NYC fashion, it wasn't. n/t

[Scrivener7]

13. Uh huh. Pfizer was FDA approved in the end of August. The NYC Dept of Ed is an

organization with about the same number of people in it as the population of the city of Dallas, though the NYC Dept of Education is a lot more diverse.

But the NYC Dept of Education should have had everything all squared away within the week after the vaccine was approved.

And because they didn't, let's all trash the union.

And you didn't answer my question: do you have a better idea? I don't.

[AZLD4Candidate]

12. Teacher's Union Bashing. . .something Republicans have done for decades

Why are we bringing it here? The ONLY union that deserves this treatment are the police unions that willfully and brazenly shield and protect bad cops.

[cinematicdiversions]

16. Any union that disregards the public good and science

Deserves a bit of stick on the subject.

[AZLD4Candidate]

17. Yes. . .nothing helps out huge nationwide teacher shortage than attacking teachers

Keep at it.

[cinematicdiversions]

19. No one is attacking teachers.

Requiring them to be vaccinated against a deadly disease that can kill children seems like a low bar for employment.

[Lucky Luciano]

21. A low bar indeed. Unvaccinated idiots should be segregated from polite society.

[NickB79]

27. We've heard that same argument against nurse vaccination mandates

It's weak as hell.

[Scrivener7]

29. The union has no problem with vaccine mandates. They were the ones who pushed for it

the moment the FDA approved Pfizer and the Dept of Education could legally compel employees to be vaccinated.

No one in the union is arguing against vaccination mandates.

The union, right now, is trying to extend the vaccine deadline which is due to take effect on Monday.

The vaccination rate in teachers and staff has risen sharply since the mandate was announced.

But there are still enough unvaxed employees that if it were enacted on Monday, classrooms would have to close, causing overcrowding in the remaining classrooms and putting children at risk that way. Some schools would have to shut down. It would cause general chaos.

The union's position is that it wants to see an extension of the deadline in order to keep kids in school but get more people vaccinated.

Do you have a better plan?

[NickB79]

31. My wife is literally throwing away vaccine doses daily

The FDA approved Pfizer over a month ago.

It's available and free EVERYWHERE.

Anyone who really wanted the shot could have had one by now. This isn't about getting "more time". It's about antivaxxers trying their damnedest to not get the shot AT ALL.

But fine. Let's extend it a week or two. Then what? Another extension? Another? Any hard line will eventually cause chaos, because a solid 20% of the US population is so brainwashed that they're willing to lose their job rather than get the vaccine.

The longer we kick the can down the road, the more people get infected.

[Scrivener7]

33. I don't know why the people who brought the complaint brought it. They are not the union.

They are not the vast majority of teachers. But the union and all the teachers are being bashed in this thread because of it.

The position of the union is to attempt to provide the greatest safety for faculty and kids.

Their position is that, given the large numbers of people who have gotten the vaccine since the mandate was announced, pushing out the deadline a few more weeks will get even more people vaccinated, and will reduce the need to put the kids through even more chaos than they have been subjected to for the past two years.

Enforcing the mandate on Monday will cause classrooms and possibly entire schools to shut down, which will put the kids and the faculties in danger due to overcrowding.

I totally support the union's position.

And again, do you have a better idea?

[Steelrolled]

23. There is a lot of Bush-style "you're either for us or against us" thinking in the world,

including DU.

[PoliticAverse]

26. It's gotten so bad, it has its own Wikipedia page...

You are either with us, or against us
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_are_either_with_us,_or_against_us

[oldsoftie]

30. Because BOTH of those unions protect criminals

You should read the New Yorker report, among others, on the NYC teachers unions and who THEY protect. The New Yorker is hardly Brietbart
Here's a hint; very little difference between the 2 unions & protecting bad seeds.

[Scrivener7]

32. That is absolute nonsense. And bashing the teachers' union over this decision is an irrational,

uninformed knee-jerk.

I would not have expected to see this nonsense here.

[oldsoftie]

34. Did you read the report? No.

It was also covered by 60 Minutes years ago.

[Scrivener7]

35. I am a member of the union. I am very well versed in how it works. I am also very

well aware of the way the press, usually led by the NY Post and other Murdoch rags, likes to completely misrepresent ALL of the union's activities. And yes, I do know how the press was portraying us "years ago." It was baseless then and it is baseless now.

It is a right wing misinformation campaign that, I see, has succeeded in making very deep inroads, even among those who should know better.

[oldsoftie]

40. Seems as if the union would've taken action if the story was false.

They didnt, so it must not have been. And I'd hardly call 60 Minutes & the New Yorker anywhere near "murdoch rags".
The unions would far mroe support from the average citizen if they didnt work so hard to "protect" people who should be fired. But if you're a member of that union, I understand why you feel the way you do.

[Scrivener7]

41. And exactly who are these people you are referring to who "should be fired?"

Last edited Mon Sep 27, 2021, 04:43 PM - Edit history (1)

I feel certain you are referring to the so called rubber rooms of the days gone by.

I will tell you the story of one of those terrible criminals who I know and who was in a rubber room: he was a middle school art teacher. He was working on a bulletin board. He pulled an exacto knife out of his art kit to make a cut in some construction paper. He made the cut, put the knife back in its plastic holder, put the holder into a zipped container. He was sent to the rubber room on the charge of "bringing a weapon to school." Art teachers routinely use exacto knives. He was sent because his principal didn't like him.

The rubber rooms were an invention of Bloomberg when he was trying to break the union. His administration placed people into them, and then alerted the press so that gullible people could be told of all the "criminals" the union was "protecting." Some dumbasses, both in and outside of the press, believed them. Much was made about how these "terrible criminals" spent years in those rooms at full pay. The fact was that the Bloomberg people didn't allow any hearings to take place.

If there had been any followup, or if the useful idiots who, apparently, STILL believe the codswallop they were fed, had seen fit to ask whatever happened with this terrible scandal, they would have found out the following: the minute Bloomberg was out and his Chancellor was replaced, the hearings on the rubber room denizens, which the Bloomberg administration had not allowed to take place for years, were finally allowed to happen. The vast, vast majority of those in the rooms were found to have not done anything wrong. A tiny percentage was fired for cause. The whole process of clearing out the rubber rooms, which were entirely for the benefit of the press in an effort to union-bust, took 3 months. That could have been done any time during Bloomberg's 12 years. He chose not to because he knew he could use the rooms to make stupid people believe that skulduggery was rampant among NYC teachers.

But there are still morons out there who bought the whole scam and see the whole episode as evidence of the monsters they just love to see lurking under their beds.

You can't fix stupid.

[Scrivener7]

42. PS: and really? You're going with the argument that you saw it in the news and therefore it must

be true?

That is really, really sad.

[Polybius]

20. Who appointed the judge?

Article didn't name him/her.

[PoliticAverse]

24. He's named in the UPI article...

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2021/09/25/judge-temporarily-block-new-york-city-coivd-19-vaccine-mandate-teacher/8631632611297/

U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Joseph F. Bianco sided with a group of New York City teachers late Friday who brought a challenge against the requirement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_F._Bianco

[onenote]

36. Bush appointed him to the district court and Trump elevated him to the appeals court

[Steelrolled]

22. Due process is important.

Let the school district administration and the teacher's union have their day in court.

[PoliticAverse]

25. The teacher's union wasn't involved in this lawsuit, it was brought on behalf of an individual

teacher and "the class"...

Link to the lawsuit (.pdf):
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nyed.469285/gov.uscourts.nyed.469285.1.0.pdf

Plaintiff Rachel Maniscalco (“Plaintiff” or “Maniscalo”), on behalf of herself and a class
of similarly situated individuals, by her attorneys, F&G Legal Group,...

[Steelrolled]

28. Well I guess they can have their day in court.

[ZonkerHarris]

37. what legal grounds were there for this? This is a long court approved action. Long precendent.

This is bullshit law.

[ZonkerHarris]

38. No legal opinion just an order in the stay...

here it is
so weak legally
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nyed.469285/gov.uscourts.nyed.469285.18.0.pdf

[BumRushDaShow]

39. A copy of the suit was posted above

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=2805426

Scanning their filing, it looks like they are referencing at least "due process" cases that IMHO don't even seem to apply.

It's a temporary injunction in order to have a 3-judge panel from the 2nd Circuit review the case (not the full court). And that is supposedly due to happen this Wednesday.

[PoliticAverse]

43. Federal judges: NYC can impose vaccine mandate on teachers

From: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/federal-judges-nyc-can-impose-vaccine-mandate-on-teachers/ar-AAOT9sd

NEW YORK (AP) — The nation's largest school district can immediately impose a vaccine mandate on its teachers and other workers, after all, a federal appeals panel decided Monday.

The three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan issued a brief order late in the day that lifted a block of the mandate that a single appeals judge had put in place on Friday.

After an adverse ruling from a Brooklyn judge, a group of teachers had brought the case to the appeals court, which assigned a three-judge panel to hear oral arguments Wednesday. But the appeals panel issued its order Monday after written arguments were submitted by both sides.

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced in August that about 148,000 school employees would have to get at least a first dose of the COVID-19 vaccination by Sept. 27. The policy covers teachers, along with other staffers, such as custodians and cafeteria workers.

[BumRushDaShow]

44. Ahhh - Thank you for that update

Looks like that is a LBN candidate! I'll put it up now.