I lost my NYC school job to the vaccine mandate — and all New Yorkers are losing too

Diane Pagen writes that the choice to fireplace unvaccinated employees can have ripple results far past the affected workers.
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I’m one of many metropolis workers who was fired this week when the vaccine mandate former Mayor Invoice de Blasio instituted took full impact.

You’ve heard about us for months. Whereas we’ve been on unpaid depart, we’ve been referred to as “egocentric” and “unsafe.” De Blasio recommended on TV that just a few months with out a paycheck would deliver us to our senses, as if we had none. Gov. Kathy Hochul took a swipe at us when she informed a Brooklyn congregation that vaccinated persons are “the good ones.”

We Division of Training employees have been notably focused by politicians and the press, who declare we “don’t care in regards to the youngsters” — although they’ve been quieter since we unvaccinated educators had been pressured out of colleges and COVID circumstances nonetheless went up 1,000% as Omicron hit.

You’ve been informed that the firings — 1,430 this week, with 9,000 extra metropolis employees nonetheless in search of exemptions — solely damage these being sacked. That’s not true. I ask that reasonably than overlook about us as rapidly as politicians would love you to, you are taking a while to take into consideration what you’re shedding.

Mayor Eric Adams introduced that 1,430 metropolis employees had been fired earlier this week for not complying with vaccination mandates.

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• You’ve misplaced tax income, and in the end you’ll see that loss in your group. I used to pay about $30,000 a 12 months in taxes. Whenever you see trash on the street, a grimy subway, diminished library hours or diminished summer time jobs for our youth, you’ll see the choice to fireplace us impacts others, too.
• You’re paying for additions to the food-stamp rolls. Now that I've no earnings, I get $250 a month. When employed and making round $90,000, I'd commonly purchase groceries for individuals who ran brief. I can now not dedicate sources to the needy.
• You’ve misplaced a public-school social employee. In August 2021, the previous chancellor preened within the press when public colleges employed 500 new sorely wanted social employees to assist our youngsters. But final 12 months, colleges misplaced many when the unvaccinated had been pressured onto unpaid depart. The Brooklyn faculty the place I labored till October has been down one psychologist and one social employee — me — for months. The children pay. The children with particular wants pay extra. 
• You’ve obtained extra harried employees who stay. The employees shortages are unfair to these nonetheless working. My social-media feeds are stuffed with tales from overwhelmed faculty employees — particularly the brand new and inexperienced, whose colleges merely don’t have sufficient employees with the unvaccinated gone. These are the adults your kids are relying on.
• You’ve misplaced a productive member of your metropolis whose days was once spent serving to youngsters. My time appears rather a lot completely different since I used to be pressured out of my job. Throughout a typical current week, I frolicked interesting a rejected unemployment declare (three hours), filling out and faxing paperwork for my food-stamp software (5 hours), ready on maintain for the state Division of Labor (one hour, 40 minutes), studying authorized paperwork and making telephone calls and writing letters to a number of politicians and “group leaders” who by no means reply. I'm additionally susceptible to all the traditional reactions to involuntary unemployment that you'd anticipate — disappointment, nervousness, frustration, all of which have an effect on my neighbors and my household in the event that they catch me on a kind of days. 
• You’ve misplaced leverage as a employee, whether or not public or non-public. By destroying our financial lives within the public eye, metropolis directors are making an instance of employees who object to an arbitrary demand and sending a message to the remainder of the workforce. The town is exhibiting it’s keen to interrupt hundreds of labor contracts, too.
• You’ve misplaced New Yorkers. Many people, gobsmacked by the months of defamation of character and the monetary coercion, have left or are planning to depart shortly. I do know a dozen devoted lecturers with 20 years of expertise who will now not be round to show your kids, spend their wages in our economic system and usually assist make New York the wonderful place it was.

In keeping with reviews, 914 of the 1,430 fired metropolis employees had been Division of Training staffers.

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I used to be a tenured worker with six years devoted to metropolis colleges. However I couldn’t maintain my job just by doing a superb job. As an alternative, I confronted a months-long intimidation marketing campaign. And I lastly misplaced my place as a result of I wouldn’t get a medical remedy I don’t assume is correct for me. New Yorkers, take into consideration what you’ve misplaced right here, too.

Diane Pagen, LMSW, was a faculty social employee for the New York Metropolis Division of Training.