Union files lawsuit over remote work

WATKINS GLEN--New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) a federation of more than 1,200 local unions announced Monday, Sept. 21 it has filed two lawsuits, one against Watkins Glen Central School District and another against Yonkers City School District in Westchester County in relation to accommodations due to the COVID-19 global pandemic.
Watkins Glen began school two weeks ago with separate cohorts of students that attend in-person either Monday/Tuesday or Thursday/Friday. Wednesday allows for additional cleaning of the building. The days the students are not in the building they are learning remotely. A student at Watkins Glen tested positive for the virus last week causing students and teachers in the classroom to be placed in quarantine.
According to the union, a Watkins Glen elementary music teacher with prior health conditions was denied telework accommodations or an alternative on-site streaming model and instead was offered a one-year, unpaid leave of absence.
"Based on her health issues, we thought it was pretty straightforward, but we kept meeting with resistance," said Jeanette Lasko, president of the Watkins Glen Faculty Association. "The district just wasn't willing to bend."
The court papers are dated Sept. 13 and were filed on the 14th. The 26-page document says "Gov. Cuomo's Executive Orders 202.45 and 202.60 require schools to consider telework accommodations for vulnerable persons, in accordance with mandatory guidance from the New York State Department of Health...Respondents' unconscionable disregard of Executive Orders 202.45 and 202.60, and their own rules and regulations puts vulnerable Association represented faculty and staff at significant and unnecessary risk of serious illness or death."
The full filing can be seen here: https://tinyurl.com/wgsuit.
"No educator should ever have to choose between their health and their livelihood," said Andy Pallotta, NYSUT president. "DOH guidelines are clear -- districts must enact policies to not only control the transmission of COVID-19 but to also protect its most at-risk school faculty and staff from the virus."