4,000 city employees will lose their jobs.
QUICK FACTS:
- New York City is expected to fire nearly 4,000 city employees Friday because they do not want to be injected with an mRNA gene therapy drug.
- Workers do not want to comply with the city government’s vaccine mandate.
- About 3,000 city workers are already on unpaid leave, and now may be terminated, according to Forbes.
- An additional 1,000 newly hired workers who haven’t submitted vaccine documentation are also facing termination, according to Bloomberg.
- Terminations will affect teachers, police officers, sanitation workers, and firefighters.
WHAT CRITICS ARE DOING:
- The vaccine mandate has drawn heavy opposition from a number of labor unions, who have repeatedly sued the city in a bid to block the mandate, according to Forbes.
- More than two dozen unions representing city workers including teachers, firefighters, and police officers filed a new lawsuit this week in Manhattan Supreme Court attempting to stop the terminations, which remains pending.
- Workers also protested against the mandate on Monday, walking across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall from the FDNY’s headquarters in Brooklyn, Forbes goes on to report.
BACKGROUND:
- Mayor Eric Adams said on Thursday that some may have already gotten vaccinated or applied for exemptions but the paperwork hadn’t been processed yet, Forbes notes.
- Adams confirmed the terminations would go ahead on Thursday, but re-branded the move saying the city is “not firing them, people are quitting” by choosing not to “follow the rules of getting vaccinated.”
- The vaccine mandate does allow for medical and religious exemptions, and the city announced in November it had negotiated with four labor unions to allow their unvaccinated members to remain on unpaid leave with health benefits until June.
