NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio announces ALL city workers including firefighters and cops must get at least one COVID vaccine dose by November 1 or be placed on unpaid leave
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday that all city workers will be required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or risk being fired - setting up a possible showdown with the powerful police union that has called the mandate an infringement of personal rights.
All municipal employees, including firefighters and police officers, have to receive one shot of the vaccine by November 1 with no weekly testing option.
'We've given people a lot of time. It's time to keep moving. We are here to keep you safe so you can keep everyone else safe,' the lame-duck mayor said Wednesday at a press conference. 'We need you to keep everyone around you in the workplace safe, we need to make sure the people you encounter are safe.'
All employees who refuse will be placed on unpaid leave.
In an attempt to further encourage public employees to get the jab, any city worker who gets their first shot between now and October 29 will receive a $500 bonus in their paycheck.
The decree could lead to an uprising on a police force fighting a wave of violent crime that saw assaults soar 18.5 percent and robberies go up 6 percent from this time last year as the NYPD revealed it had made more than 3,400 gun arrests in 2021.
'The mayor has no idea what he’s doing. We’re going to lose half of our cops and half of our fire department if this goes through, and then what?' an unidentified Brooklyn official told the New York Post.
Mayor Bill de Blasio announces his new mandate for all public employees, including cops are firefighters, to get the COVID-19 vaccine during appearance on Morning Joe on Wednesday
Pat Lynch, the president of the Police Benevolent Association, has been an outspoken critic of vaccine mandates
The new vaccine requirement immediately applies to 160,500 workers, of whom 71 percent have already receive at least dose, according to the statement.
De Blasio specifically cited the success of getting healthcare workers (95 percent) and education employees (96 percent) vaccinated.
However, the vaccine uptake thus far among the city's law enforcement and fire services is significantly lower.
The NYPD has a vaccination rate of 69 percent among its 55,000 officers and civilian members. The FDNY - which is comprised of 10,951 uniformed firefighting employees, 4,274 uniformed EMS employees, and 2,096 civilian employees - has a vaccination rate at just 59 percent.
Pat Lynch, the president of the Police Benevolent Association, has said 'the COVID-19 vaccine is a medical decision that members must make in consultation with their own healthcare providers.'
However, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said in an interview with NY1 on Tuesday that he is in full support of the vaccine mandate for cops.
'We lost three members last week, two of them to COVID, and I think it's all unnecessary, to some degree,' said Shea.
'I just think everyone all across this country, really, should be embracing these vaccines.'
The NYPD has a vaccination rate of 69 percent among its 55,000 officers and civilian members
The FDNY - which is comprised of 10,951 uniformed firefighting employees, 4,274 uniformed EMS employees, and 2,096 civilian employees - has a vaccination rate at just 59 percent
The new mandate builds upon an announcement in July that city employees would be required to show proof of vaccination or submit to weekly testing.
The deadline for the first jab will be extended to Dec. 1 for uniformed correction officers because of staff shortages at problem-wracked Rikers Island, de Blasio said.
'We need people to come back, and we need to address real situations there, so we’ve added a month for that small group only,' he said. 'But it’s still a mandate.'
The move comes amid sweeping vaccine mandates across America which caused thousands of unvaccinated employees to be suspended or fired, while a slew of high profile companies have also issued vaccine mandates among their workforce.
Critics of the vaccine mandate have railed against a perceived deprivation of freedom which forces workers to choose between unemployment or the vaccine, while supporters believe the threat of the virus justifies a mandatory inoculation policy.
The issue has come to a head in Chicago, where the police union has fought against Mayor Lori Lightfoot's Oct. 15 deadline for all public employees to report their vaccination status to a city-run portal.
The police union's website again on Tuesday directed members to not comply, but also has offered an option to comply while providing a form to show they are doing so 'under complete duress and threats of termination,' NBC5 Chicago reported.
'Don’t let them confuse you, or bully you, into going onto the portal,' said Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara.
As of Monday, 4,500 police officers did not report their vaccination status by the expired deadline, officials said, with 21 officers being placed on unpaid status as a result of refusing to submit their information to the portal.
In Washington state, nearly 1,900 public employees have either quit or been fired due to a vaccine requirement. That's about three percent of the 63,000 Washington state workers subject to Gov. Jay Inslee’s COVID-19 order.
President Joe Biden in September signed an executive order which states companies of 100 employees or more must get their employees vaccinated or introduce regular testing.
In accordance with New York City's current vaccine mandates, healthcare workers and Department of Education staff are required to have been inoculated against COVID-19.
Hundreds of New York City healthcare workers were suspended without pay or fired from their positions just weeks ago, when a state wide vaccine mandate required all workers to be vaccinated by September 27.
Meanwhile, the Department of Education's mandate came into effect on Monday October 1, after the US Supreme Court blocked an injunction from a group of teachers and school workers requesting the mandate to be blocked.
New York City has one of the strictest sets of coronavirus restrictions in America.
Besides the vaccine mandates, a person must show their proof-of-vaccine card to gain access to most public venues, and individuals without proof of inoculation are largely barred from every day places such as bars, restaurants and theatres.
More than 75 percent of eligible Americans have received at least one jab of the vaccine, with about 57 percent of the population fully vaccinated against the virus.
By contrast, data from the CDC released over the weekend suggests that 65 percent of the total population of New York state is fully vaccinated, equating to nearly 13 million residents.
Hundreds of New York City healthcare workers were suspended without pay or fired from their positions just weeks ago, when a state wide vaccine mandate required all workers to be vaccinated by September 27 (pictured: Freedom Rally in Times Square, October 16)
Nearly 1,000 reportedly gathered at Times Square over the weekend to march on streets as part of the rally to protest vaccination mandates in New York City
Tom Sheppard, a member of New York City's Community Education Council, said that enforcing vaccinations will only serve to break people's trust in the government and the healthcare system.
'Overusing heavy-handed mandates that threaten people's livelihoods is seen as cruel,' said Sheppard.
'You may even mean well, but doing it this way erodes trust instead of building it.'
The vaccine mandates have sparked considerable mistrust among disadvantaged and low-income communities who were hit hardest by Coronavirus restrictions and can not afford to lose their jobs over the vaccine.
The ever-expanding vaccine mandates and widespread restrictions have triggered a mass-exodus of New Yorkers from the state, heading for the warmer climes and relaxed restrictions of Florida.
More than 33,500 New Yorkers moved to Florida in the 10 months prior to July, according to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, up 32% from the same period in the previous year.
In the private sector, General Electric has become the latest company to require all US-based workers to get their jab, announcing last week their vaccine policy had been updated to instruct all workers to be vaccinated by December 8.
As a federal contractor who sells jet engines and other equipment to the government, GE said its 56,000 employees must comply with the executive order and joins giant firms such as IBM, Alphabet Inc. and Facebook requiring some or all staff to be vaccinated.
IBM, which employees more than 100,000 people in the US, said that all US employees must comply with the vaccine deadline or face unpaid suspensions, while United Airlines and American Airlines have even said they would fire unvaccinated employees.
General Electric will require its 56,000 US employees to vaccinate against COVID-19 according to its newly updated vaccine policy (pictured: GE's Global Operations offices in Cincinnati, Ohio)
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October 20, 2021
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