The vaccination requirement for municipal employees in New York City has gone into force, and just a few police officers have rejected it, significantly less than the 10,000 warned by the NYPD's union.
Thousands of Police Officers Were Set To Be Pulled From the Streets
In a recently published article in The Washington Post, after the Nov. 1 vaccination requirement deadline for New York City workers, the chiefs of the five main unions representing police officers in the city warned that 10,000 unvaccinated officers were "prepared to be taken off the streets" for refusing to be vaccinated.
When the deadline on vaccine mandate passed on Monday, more than a third of the 35,000 uniformed officers in the NYPD were put on unpaid leave, along with 40 civilian NYPD employees out of 17,000, according to Police Commissioner Dermot Shea.
Meanwhile, according to Shea, many more are waiting for the city to respond to their petitions for religious or medical exemptions. He noted that 85 percent of NYPD officers had been vaccinated already, according to a published article in Yahoo News.
Employees Who Were Placed On Leave Without Pay Status
On Nov. 1, around 9,000 municipal workers out of a workforce of more than 300,000 were put on leave without pay, while roughly 12,000 had requested a religious or medical exemption to vaccination and were awaiting a decision from the city, according to de Blasio.
Furthermore, during the same press conference, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said that the vaccine requirement had caused no substantial interruptions in municipal services as thousands still refused to be inoculated, according to a report published in Independent.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said, "Now, remember at any hour, any of those 9,000 can say, wait a minute, I'm willing to get vaccinated and come back, and we saw over the weekend, a lot of that happening, thousands of people changing their mind coming back."
Hundreds of New York City Firefighters Opposed the Vaccine Mandate
Meanwhile, hundreds more New York City firefighters than normal phoned in sick in the week coming up to the Nov. 1 deadline, according to Fire Commissioner Daniel A. Nigro, indicating that the vaccination requirement continues to be opposed by the organization.
Since de Blasio announced on Oct. 20 that all city employees would be required to be vaccinated, with no option to avoid the vaccine mandate through regular testing, the Uniformed Firefighters Association, the main union representing active and retired New York City firefighters, has been at odds with city and state officials.
Moreover, all municipal workers in New York had to verify they had gotten at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccination by Oct. 29 at 5 p.m. or ask for a medical or religious exemption by Oct. 27. Those who did not comply with the rules and did not apply for an exception were likely to be put on paid leave on Nov. 1.
Under the state's Civil Service Law, they might be reprimanded and eventually fired, but the precise timing depends on the agency and existing agreements with workers and their unions.
Related Article: Almost All Employees in New York City Protest Outside Mayor's Residence as Vaccine Mandate Deadline Nears
