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Wrong to Mandate Flu Shot

To the Editor:

By now it should be apparent both to Mayor Bloomberg and to Health Commissioner Thomas Farley that their decision to support—and enable —state Health Commissioner Daines’s [now-cancelled] decision to mandate H1N1 vaccinations for all health care providers has backfired. Not only has a judge granted an injunction against the vaccinations, but the decision to force-feed the vaccine to civil servants—violating age-old practices of consultation and mutual respect—has caused widespread questioning of the rationale for the vaccinations.

This chorus of questions becomes louder every day. In Britain, 47 percent of nurses say they won’t get vaccinated. In Canada, a recent study suggests that seasonal flu shots raise a person’s risk of catching swine flu. And across the U.S., a poll conducted by the University of Michigan says 40 percent of parents won’t have their children vaccinated.

District Council 37 Local 768, the city’s third-largest union of healthcare workers, is not against vaccinations. We’re against the mandate that health-care workers must be vaccinated or lose their jobs. Our members are highly educated when it comes to the risks and benefits of vaccinations, and they are following the news closely. They deserve the right to make the decision as to being vaccinated themselves, based on the information available in this still-developing situation.

The overriding truth is that swine flu is not especially dangerous, although it does cause serious illness in some cases, especially to children. As such, it does not give justification for a Draconian mandate. What the mandate does is raise serious questions about civil liberties and the limits of government power—questions which this union will pursue as we continue to protect our members’ rights.

We represent health-care professionals who put the needs of our patients first, and we will continue to do so. We are asking, in turn, for basic respect from the agencies we work for, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the Health and Hospitals Corporation. I have asked for a meeting both with DOHMH Commissioner Tom Farley and HHC President Alan Aviles to present to them the perspective of our members.

I also believe it is time to discuss the framework in place for the protection of workers from communicable diseases and to extend sick leave coverage for certain illnesses with a presumption that they are job-related. If all employees of a hospital are going to be required to be vaccinated— clearly a change in the terms and conditions of employment—the employer should be prepared to bargain on the issue of additional compensation, or hazard pay.

It is also time to raise a separate but related issue for our members in HHC —the question of equal pay for equal work, and the fact that the same titles, in different HHC hospital networks, receive widely varying salaries.
FITZ REID
President, Local 768,
DC 37, AFSCME