Baker’s anti-union stance informs vaccine strategy

A year ago, Gov. Charlie Baker issued two executive orders enumerating categories of “essential services” and “essential industries.” Under the executive orders these essential services were deemed too important to shut down in order to keep the economy running and to provide needed services for basic human survival. The vast majority of United Food and Commercial Workers Local

1445 membership fell under these categories. Indeed, among the essential services our 14,000 members perform are in hospitals, nursing homes, meat packing and processing, and in retail and supermarkets. Those workers were lauded as “heroes” both by politicians and in the media.

Yet the vaccination rollout by Gov. Baker’s administration was fraught by missteps and incompetency. One only needs to recall the state’s original vaccination website, which seemed like a sad joke if only its consequences were not real. Today’s preregistration system is much better, but there is a tragic underlying problem. Various unions offered the Baker administration several solutions to more effectively roll out the vaccination of essential workers to no avail. Unions including the American Federation of Teachers, the Massachusetts Teachers Association, the Firefighters, the Amalgamated Transportation Workers, the United Food and Commercial Workers, the Machinists and many others offered worksite vaccination programs in partnership with employers.

Instead of taking time off from work or from family matters to make appointments at the state’s mega-vaccination sites, unions proposed a more efficient vaccination rollout that would quickly get doses in the arms of essential workers.

Gov. Baker’s response was to try to pit essential workers against the teachers’ unions by falsely claiming that teachers were trying to bump the elderly and infirm from their vaccinations. UFCW Local 1445 members were relieved when teachers got vaccinated because our members’ children attend public schools and ride school buses. Instead of listening to those who represent the frontline workforce of the commonwealth, Gov. Baker’s anti-union ideology has made it worse.