By Braden Campbell

Law360 (August 19, 2020, 7:00 PM EDT ) The head of the union representing New York City schoolteachers said the group will sue or strike if the city reopens schools as planned next month without having met a lengthy set of testing and safety criteria laid out in a press conference Wednesday.

The United Federation of Teachers' plan would require students to test positive for COVID-19 antibodies or negative for the virus before they're admitted to schools, which city officials are planning to reopen Sept. 10. The reopening checklist also calls for schools to provide masks and cleaning supplies, establish and enforce distancing protocols, meet air filtration standards and more before students and teachers return to the classroom.

"If we feel that a school is not safe, we are prepared to go to court and take a job action," President Michael Mulgrew said.

Wednesday's ultimatum raises the stakes in an ongoing fight between the UFT and city officials over whether and how the country's largest school district will resume in-person instruction this fall.

Earlier this month, Gov. Andrew Cuomo gave New York City the go-ahead to resume in-person instruction while leaving it up to local administrators to decide how. The city's plan would give parents the option of fully online classes or a hybrid model in which students attend school some days and learn from home on others, starting next month.

But even that model poses unacceptable risks to teachers if schools don't implement a host of safety precautions, Mulgrew said Wednesday.

The UFT's plan, which the union developed in conjunction with health experts, sets out dozens of requirements for schools to meet, including comprehensive testing, speedy contact tracing and strict physical precautions.

The testing requirements are particularly daunting, Mulgrew acknowledged. The plan calls for every student to be tested before they can return to the classroom, and for random testing of students and staff throughout the year to root out pockets of infection before they spread. Even if a third of parents opt for remote instruction, the plan would require 750,000 tests, Mulgrew said.

Because of ongoing shortages, it's not possible to administer that many tests before the planned start of the school year on Sept. 10, Mulgrew said. But the city could meet those requirements if it delays the start of in-person instruction or staggers reopenings, he said.

If the city doesn't meet those demands, the union will act despite a state law banning teacher strikes, Mulgrew said.

The state's public sector union statute, known as the Taylor Law, forbids state workers and their collective bargaining representatives from staging work stoppages, strikes or other labor actions. If teachers strike, they and the UFT could be fined, and Mulgrew could be jailed.

"That's all fine, we'll do it if we have to," Mulgrew said.

Similar debates are playing out around the country as school staff and administrators grapple with the challenge of teaching during a pandemic. Last month, Florida's largest teachers union sued Gov. Ron DeSantis to thwart his plan for a widespread return to the classroom. Chicago administrators recently backed down from plans for in-person instruction after teachers there threatened to strike. Los Angeles has reached a deal with its teachers' union for partial in-person instruction.

New York City is uniquely equipped among major U.S. cities to resume classes because it has slowed the spread of COVID-19, Mulgrew said. But that success makes it all the more urgent that the city get reopening right.

"New York City is at a high risk — extremely high risk — of doing it wrong and paying a major price, which we do not want to happen again," he said.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

--Additional reporting by Carolina Bolado. Editing by Stephen Berg.

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