© Stephen Yang/ReutersPeople march over the Brooklyn Bridge during an anti-vaccine mandate protest in New York, N.Y., February 7, 2022
Demonstrations held with the intention of pressuring Mayor Eric Adams to drop the mandate have been to no avail. Elected as a moderate, Adams has pledged to enforce the mandates put into place by his progressive predecessor, Bill de Blasio.
While the coronavirus vaccines have continued to prove effective at preventing severe disease, they have not significantly reduced transmission rates of the Omicron variant. Nevertheless, Adams reiterated that the mandate is for the protection of the employees and those they serve.
"We have to be very clear — people must be vaccinated if they are New York City employees," Adams said at a press conference on Thursday. "Everyone understood that."
The vast majority of the city's 370,000 workers, about 95 percent, have received at least one shot, and that number could possibly increase on Friday as the mandate is enforced. Of the 3,000 workers at risk to be terminated, 25 are firefighters.
Despite labor shortages crippling many industries across the country, city officials told the New York Times that the absence of 3,000 workers, who have been on unpaid leave until this point, hasn't hindered the city from providing essential services.
Comment: Has anyone bothered to ask the recipients of those essential services if they've noticed a difference?
Trashy! Disgusting garbage piles up in NYC after De Blasio sent sanitation workers home for refusing vaccines
Over two dozen municipal unions, representing police officers, firefighters, and teachers have filed lawsuits ahead of the Friday deadline challenging the vaccine requirement. The parties involved, including the United Federation of Teachers, Uniformed Fire Officers Association and the Police Benevolent Association, argue that the city's decision to fire city employees who had their exemption requests dismissed infringes on their civil rights.
This isn't the first time the city has been sued over the mandate, but past efforts to fight it have been rejected in the courts.
"This argument has already been raised in nine different lawsuits and rejected," city Law Department spokesperson Kimberly Joyce said in a statement obtained by the New York Post. "Courts have clearly and consistently found compliance with the Health Commissioner's order to vaccinate is a condition of employment, not discipline, and employees who choose to remain unvaccinated do not get a disciplinary hearing prior to termination."
Caroline Downey is a news writer for National Review Online. @carolinedowney_
It now symbolises a broken system that is well and truly working against its own people.