New York will fire 3,000 municipal employees for refusing to be vaccinated against the coronavirus

Anti-vaccine protest this Monday in New York. Yuki Iwamura (AP)

The New York City Council plans to fire some 3,000 municipal employees who have refused to be vaccinated against the coronavirus starting this Friday.

Those affected constitute barely 1% of the workforce and with their attitude, the mayor, the Democrat Eric Adams, has emphasized, they are the ones who “resign” their jobs.

Religious and in some cases political objections, in addition to health reasons, support the rejection of the deniers.

These 3,000 workers represent the most drastic example of a sanction by a local Administration, but not the only one.

Throughout the pandemic, with sometimes overlapping decrees between the City Council and the State, Administration employees have been forced to be immunized to carry out their work and not be subject to dismissal.

The most notorious case is that of public school teachers, who waged a legal battle against the previous mayor, also a Democrat Bill de Blasio, to guarantee their right not to receive the vaccine.

Teachers, firefighters and police unions, among other bodies of the Administration, have fought especially to make individual rights prevail over the sanitary measures agreed by the city or the State.

The mandatory immunization order for municipal employees was issued by De Blasio, and has been confirmed by his substitute in the mayor's office.

Despite protests and union boycotts, the requirement has proven to be effective: around 95% of the 370,000 municipal employees – in a city of almost nine million inhabitants – have received at least one dose of the vaccine.

In October, when De Blasio gave the order, the vaccination rate among the municipal workforce was 84%.

However, some departments are more reluctant to follow the norm, such as the police department, with 35,000 officers, where only 88% have received a dose, or prison workers.

In contrast, the fire department and the sanitation department have the highest rate of immunization, 95%.

The mayor's ultimatum has put the deniers on a war footing.

In an anecdotal protest over the number of participants, hundreds of New Yorkers demonstrated across the Brooklyn Bridge Monday, demanding that the city end the mandate and holding signs that read “Workers are essential, requirements [of vaccination] no”, “Unvaccinated lives matter” —an imitation of the already classic “Black lives matter”— and “Fire Fauci”, the renowned epidemiologist and chief medical adviser to the White House, who in recent weeks has been has become the target of a new campaign of harassment by the Republican opposition and the most radical sectors, denialists included.

In the face of protests, Adams has reaffirmed the city's ultimatum: either the workers in question receive the first dose of the vaccine, or they will be immediately fired.

If the threat is carried out, the one in New York would be the most drastic example in the country of a reduction in the workforce linked to a vaccination requirement.

"We have to be very clear: New York City employees have to get vaccinated," Adams said Thursday at a news conference.

“Everyone has understood this [but] we are not going to fire them.

They are the ones who are quitting [their job].

The responsibility is clear”, added the councilman.

City Hall sources recall that the mandatory vaccination order adopted by De Blasio was one of the most important public health measures in the city during the pandemic, protecting essential workers and the public while setting a precedent for private companies and others. communities.

In fact, four days after ordering the immunization of private school workers, de Blasio decreed on December 6 mandatory vaccination in all private sector companies in the city.