On October 20th, New York City issued a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all city workers, establishing the deadline to be Monday, November 1st. As a result of the mandate, the city’s vaccination rate has increased from 61% to 87%. However, the city mayor, Bill de Blasio, announced that 9,000 of the city’s 378,000 municipal employees have been placed on unpaid leave after Monday’s deadline for refusal to comply with the recent mandate. 

Notably, hundreds of workers in the fire and police department called in sick, suspected to be protesting the mandate. The Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro has claimed that around 2,300 city firefighters have called in sick since the mandate went into effect.  “If the union coordinates-in any way-a job action, that is a violation of the Taylor Law,” de Blasio stated in reference to a state law prohibiting public employees from striking. He further mentioned that the city was prepared to go to court for violations to the law. Many have criticized the government for offering such a narrow time range (12 days) to get the vaccine, citing the inability to discuss potential dangers with their doctors as a reason for the low vaccination rate. The FDNY-Firefighters Association, opposed to the mandate, proposed the possibility that firefighters called in sick due to reactions from receiving the vaccine.

Mayor de Blasio has reported that employee leaves have not caused any disruptions to city services and revealed that emergency response times have remained consistent. However, there are around 12,000 city workers who have not received their first dose of the vaccine and have applied for exemptions on the basis of religious and medical reasons. They are permitted to continue working while their requests are reviewed by local authorities as long as they receive weekly COVID-19 tests. City agencies predict worker shortages in the near future as more city worker requests are evaluated, considering that religious exceptions are expected to be scarce. Currently, less than 1% of the workforce have been granted exemptions, only 0.1% of which have been granted due to religious beliefs.

Sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/01/nyregion/nyc-vaccine-mandate.html

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/02/us/nyc-fdny-firefighters-vaccine-mandate-sick-leave/index.html