Some Unvaccinated City Employees Could Be Fired, But Thousands More Are Still In Limbo

Jake Offenhartz

Published Feb 1, 2022

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Mayor Eric Adams, at a news conference on January 4th at the Pearl River Mart , wears a hooded sweatshirt reading "Vaccine and Testing".

Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office

Jake Offenhartz

Published Feb 1, 2022

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Three months after the city’s vaccine mandate took effect for all municipal workers, the Adams administration has yet to make a determination about thousands of city employees who sought an exemption from the shot.

In a memo shared with city agencies on Monday, Citywide Administrative Services Commissioner Dawn Pinnock announced that city employees who were previously suspended for defying the mandate – those who received no shot and did not get an exemption or apply for a health care extension – could face termination if they don’t get the jab by February 11th. That shakes out to about 3,000 employees across all city agencies, according to City Hall.

But the deadline will not apply to the larger pool of workers who sought religious or medical accommodations, and whose cases have not been ruled on by the city. Those employees have continued working long after the city missed its own deadline for reviewing the exemption requests, a City Hall spokesperson confirmed.

When the mandate went into effect in November, more than 14,000 employees, including roughly 6,000 NYPD employees, applied for exemptions. The city initially said it would make determinations for each submission within seven days.

But a spokesperson for City Hall acknowledged that process was ongoing. Officials declined to share how many exemption requests were approved, denied or still pending, despite calls to make that information public.

"City employees have the right to request and be granted reasonable accommodations, but we are now long past the deadline,” City Comptroller Brad Lander said in a statement to WNYC/Gothamist. “There's been a process, and the City should be transparent with how many accommodations have been granted.”

Mayor Eric Adams said Monday the city sent a letter to some unvaccinated employees alerting them they would be terminated if they don’t get the shot by February 11th.

“There’s a lack of common decency for your neighbors living in a city as complex like this,” Adams said. “There must be rules and we must follow them.”

For now, those rules will only apply to the 3,000 or so city employees who were already on leave without pay – a group that includes fewer than 50 NYPD officers, according to a bulletin shared by Police Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch. The city has also not released the breakdown of terminations by agency.

But more than 6,000 NYPD employees – or roughly 11% of the department – applied for religious or medical exemptions, three times more than any other city agency. Roughly the same number of NYPD employees had not been fully vaccinated as of this week, according to data provided by the department.

The lack of action on the NYPD employees has fueled allegations that the Adams administration is slow-walking the review process to avoid firing cops as the city grapples with an increase in violent crime.

“These 11% are essentially saying ‘we want to stay on the force and we don’t want to get vaccinated,’ and that’s an untenable situation,” said Dr. Irwin Redlener, the director of Columbia University's National Center for Disaster Preparedness.

But he acknowledged losing thousands of officers is “a big hit when the NYPD is under a lot of pressure to deal with crime.”

The vaccination rate for sanitation workers and FDNY employees was 94% and 95% respectively, according to representatives for both agencies. Both agencies had far fewer exemption requests than the NYPD.

When the mandate was first passed under de Blasio, officials indicated that exemptions would be rare, and would not be granted solely on the basis of personal, political or philosophical preferences.

Those who were initially denied their requests would go before an appeal board composed of members of several city agencies. All final decisions were initially supposed to be issued by November 25th. De Blasio later acknowledged that the city had fallen far short of that deadline.

The former mayor also reached a deal with some labor unions that would allow unvaccinated employees to remain on unpaid leave while still collecting benefits through June of 2022. Those employees are not among the ones who will be terminated this month.

While Adams has been supportive of the municipal employee vaccine mandate, Redlener noted that the calculus had changed, given the slowing hospitalization rates, along with increased attention on crime in the city. Earlier this week, Adams said he would consider hiring more police officers.

“The public health righteousness of the argument that you must get vaccinated is a little diminished at a time when, at least in New York, we’re seeing COVID rapidly reduced in frequency and severity,” Redlener said. “It’s a very complex decision that has to be made by the city: are they going to follow through or not?”

This story has been updated with additional information.

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