New York City’s powerful teachers’ union threatened Wednesday to strike unless every student and teacher is tested for COVID-19 before returning to in-person learning—a task that would make it impossible to reopen the city’s public schools as planned.
“The minute we feel the mayor is trying to force people into an unsafe school, we go,” said Michael Mulgrew, president of United Federation of Teachers (UFT), which represents some 95,000 public school employees. Mulgrew issued an ultimatum at a press conference, laying out a series of demands each of New York City’s 1,700 public schools must meet in order to reopen this fall.
