New York City mayor Eric Adams fired 1,430 city workers for refusing to be vaccinated against Covid-19, the city announced on Monday.
The fired workers — who failed to meet a Friday deadline to comply with the city’s vaccine mandate for municipal employees — included 36 workers in the New York City Police Department, 25 associated with the city’s fire department, and 914 in its department of education, according to the New York Post. The firings also affected 101 NYC Housing Authority workers and 40 Sanitation Department workers.
Most of the workers had previously been placed on unpaid leave and received termination notices after failing to receive a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, while two newer hires were fired for failing to receive two vaccine doses under more strict requirements.
Harry Nespoli, president of the Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association and head of the Municipal Labor Council, blasted the move.
“Workers should not get fired. There are a lot of people who don’t believe in putting this stuff in their bodies,” Nespoli said, according to the New York Post.
The firings account for less than one percent of the city’s workforce, but they likely the country’s largest mass termination of municipal employees over a Covid-19 vaccine mandate, the New York Times reported.
The number of firings ended up being much lower than previously anticipated; officials said last week some 4,000 workers could be fired over the mandate.
Almost 1,000 workers submitted proof of vaccination just before the deadline and returned to work.
Amid the firings, Adams instead chose to focus on the majority of workers who complied with the mandate.
“City workers served on the frontlines during the pandemic, and by getting vaccinated, they are, once again, showing how they are willing to do the right thing to protect themselves and all New Yorkers,” he said in a statement.
“Our goal was always to vaccinate, not terminate, and city workers stepped up and met the goal placed before them,” he added. “Out of all the new city employees who received notices two weeks ago, only two who worked last week are no longer employed by the city.”
However, Friday’s terminations may not be the last round of vaccine-related firings as the city works its way through 13,044 requests for medical or religious accommodations or exemptions from the mandate.
So far, the city has made decisions in just 7,030 of those cases, with just 2,118 of those approved. The 4,919 workers who have had their requests denied can file an appeal.