A common refrain in COVID denial Facebook groups is that their members are dedicated to defending workers’ rights in the face of workplace mask and vaccine mandates. Groups documented in this report have specifically claimed to speak for healthcare workers and staged protests alleging to do so.
However, these groups’ blatant disregard for the health of people who work in hospitals and schools, in the public and private sector alike, should lay this claim to rest. But the disregard for worker health and safety circulating through these Facebook forums does not stop there.
A troubling amount of content in these groups vigorously assails labor unions. Labor unions and worker’s organizations are critical in defending and building genuine democracy in the United States. Absent trade unions, and broader struggles for workers’ rights and democracy, working people have working conditions, pay, benefits, and safety and health standards imposed on them. An attack on trade unions is an attack on working people. Such attacks are troublingly common in Facebook COVID denial groups.
In the face of the pandemic, countless working people have sought to ensure their own safety in the workplace and that of others who enter their work environment. These struggles have been particularly acute in public schools, where COVID denialists and far-right politicians have pressed for the rapid opening of schools, thwarting even minimal safety measures, such as masks and social distancing, to protect the health and lives of children and education workers alike.
Participants in Facebook COVID denial groups frequently single out teachers and their unions with narrow-minded and vicious attacks. For instance, teachers’ unions have been attacked for attempting to protect themselves and children in schools from COVID-19 through the use of masks. A member of Unmask our kids Washington (6,935 members), for instance, proclaimed, “Masks were forced on kids from a demand of the teachers unions. Are you surprised?”[261] A post by a moderator of Let’s Get Back to Work! – RationalGround.com (2,611 members) claimed, “Teachers Unions and politicians threw away at least a year of kids’ lives. Some are still doing it.”[262]
A post in Parents Choice March – Save Our Children (19,361 members) continued in this vein, alleging that teachers’ unions “in this country were given far too much power. They have become political and are using kids as pawns with their demands. It’s the teachers union who refused to return to school, it’s the teachers union pushing for masks.”[263] A moderator of UNMASK OUR CHILDREN! WNY (4,451 members) writes, sans evidence, “I would bet that the teachers unions and/or government are paying off NYSED [New York Stated Education Department] to enforce masks.”[264]