Vaccine reparations

 

 Rockawave 

The New York City Council’s Common Sense Caucus gathered on the steps of City Hall with unvaccinated city workers last week to introduce a resolution supporting state legislation that would reinstate all city employees who were fired for not complying with the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Co-sponsored by NYC Councilwoman Joann Ariola and Minority Leader Joseph Borelli, the resolution, while non-binding and unlikely to be passed by the full Council, advocates for the passage of S7466A, the senate bill sponsored by NYS Senator Andrew J. Lanza.

“We’ve gathered here today because for the past two years, thousands of hard-working New Yorkers have been prevented from working at their jobs, jobs that they love,” Ariola said. “All for refusing to take the vaccine, a vaccine that is no longer mandated.”

Last week’s rally took place on Thursday, Feb. 8, which marked the first anniversary since the city ended the vaccine mandate for public and private sector workers. Yet despite the mandate being lifted, many of the 1,700 fired city workers have still not returned to work due to a waiver requirement that forces them to forfeit their civil service rights and rights to back pay in exchange for their jobs back.

“A piece of paper is all that stands between them and going back to work, going back to work in a city that is seriously under headcount in all of our essential services, as well as our educational services and our first responders,” Ariola added. “These are men and women we must get back to work. They have been wrongfully removed from their positions.”

Throughout the rally, numerous city workers who lost their jobs due to the mandate spoke of their experiences as well as those of their colleagues.

Michael Kane of the Teachers For Choice recalled how unvaccinated city workers felt isolated when the mandate was first rolled out two years ago, adding that they were often called names and ostracized for their decision to not take the COVID-19 vaccine.

“In the beginning, we were alone,” said Kane, a teacher of 15 years. “But history, while it turns at a long and winding road, it bends in the direction of truth. That’s where we’re headed now,” he added. “We’re suing because we were discriminated against because of our sincerely-held religious beliefs.”

Sal Maita of the Bravest For Choice echoed Kane’s remarks, adding that the goal of their movement is to appeal to the “humanity” of Mayor Eric Adams, the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, the Law Department, and elected officials on both sides of the aisle in hopes that it will inspire them to reinstate city workers without barriers like the waiver.

“It is now over two years since the pandemic propagated a scourge and a purge that turned our lives upside down,” said Maita, an FDNY firefighter of 15 years. “We must continue to fight. If we don’t, there’s other things coming down the line.”

Get stuff done on the cheap

Gothamist

A mounting staffing crisis facing New York City, the country’s largest municipal employer, is raising questions about City Hall’s approach to hiring and whether the city is doing enough to compete for workers at a time when many critical agencies are being stretched thin.

Most city workers have blamed the city’s abnormally high attrition and difficulty in hiring on a lack of a remote working or hybrid option.

However, some current and former city agency officials and hiring managers say the challenge in hiring top job applicants also comes from a relatively recent practice of lowballing new hires. According to a source in city government, the policy stems from a union rule that was rarely enforced until the pandemic spurred belt-tightening measures from City Hall.

Six people familiar with the hiring process spanning across five different agencies, including the Department of Transportation and Department of Sanitation, told Gothamist they were directed to offer candidates with no prior experience working in New York City government the minimum salary of the range published on the job posting.

The individuals who spoke to Gothamist did not want to be named for fear of retribution from the City Hall and concerns over their job prospects.

All recall that the policy was verbally communicated, although one city worker shared several emails dating back to August 2021 from their human resources department that said employees in their first two years of city service should be paid at a “new hire rate.”

The practice, they said, prevents their agencies from hiring the most qualified candidates at a moment when the private sector has ramped up hiring following a pandemic-spurred lull, often with offers of higher pay and, in many cases, flexibility around remote work.

“They are shooting themselves in the foot,” one municipal employee said.

THE CITY 

City Hall is trying a novel approach to address a shortage of attorneys willing to work at the lower salaries offered by municipal government — by getting lawyers to work at no cost.

Documents show that Mayor Eric Adams tapped his chief counsel Brendan McGuire, a former partner at the global law firm WilmerHale, to lead an effort to recruit pro bono attorneys from private law firms. 

“The initiative seeks to encourage City service among junior attorneys at private law firms and to alleviate the City’s current attorney hiring challenges,” the documents say. “It proposes to accomplish this goal by enhancing pro bono engagements to expose junior attorneys to the full range of the City’s legal work.”

The Conflicts of Interest Board granted McGuire approval to oversee the initiative, which could include conducting business with his former law firm. In the approval letter, the board says the city is also developing a fellows program under which private law firms would lend junior attorneys to the city for a year.

The measure comes amid a City Council review — including at a public hearing this past Friday — of city government staffing shortages, which took hold during a 2020 COVID hiring freeze and have persisted into the ninth month of the administration of Mayor Eric Adams.

A Council report in connection with last week’s oversight hearing identified nearly 1,200 vacancies at the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene — about 19% short of the agency’s budgeted headcount — and more than 2,200 open positions at the city’s Department of Social Services, roughly a 17% shortfall.

At the hearing, Saul Fishman, president of the Civil Service Bar Association, which represents attorneys working in 40 city agencies, said his union’s membership has fallen by 22% since the start of the pandemic because of departures from government  — from 1,057 to 831 people. 

City lawyers handle everything from police misconduct lawsuits to foster care cases.

The majority of the losses came after former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s full-time return-to-office mandate, which went into effect last September. Adams and his top staffers have doubled down on that mandate this year, and on Monday, the mayor reiterated his stance.

“I’m not just a chorus about returning to work — I wrote the song,” he said at a press conference. “It’s time to get back to work. You cannot hang out in the nightclub on Sunday but you’re afraid to come to work on Monday.”

GSD MIA

 

THE CITY

The city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene had nearly 1,200 unfilled positions in June — making the agency on the pandemic’s frontline one of 46 in city government missing more than 10% of their budgeted employees, according to preliminary figures obtained by THE CITY.

The numbers reflect an ongoing challenge in hiring and retaining government workers, an issue that’s getting scrutiny at a hearing on Friday under City Councilmember Gale Brewer’s Oversight and Investigations Committee, which produced the preliminary numbers.

They show the citywide government jobs vacancy rate at 7.9% as of June. The agency with the most extreme shortfall was the Commission on Human Rights, which had 37 of its 136 budgeted positions unfilled — a rate of 27.2%.

Among larger agencies, vacancy rates were highest at the Department of Buildings, at 24.2% (489 vacancies), the Department of Health at 19.1% (1,189 vacancies) and the Department of Social Services at 17.3% (2,256 openings).

The numbers were slightly better at the city’s uniformed agencies.

The Department of Correction had a shortage of 862 workers in June, or 9.1%, although an extended trend of employees calling out sick has been compounding problems there.

And while the NYPD had a comparatively low vacancy rate of 2.9% in June, that equates to 1,448 unfilled positions, the preliminary numbers show.

“I don’t know where all these vacancies are, but I can tell you from personal experience, everything is slow in terms of getting sign-off,” said Brewer. “I’m just worried the expertise we’ve had over the years is going to disappear from the city.” 

Medicare disadvantage dismissed

NY Daily News

A Manhattan judge ruled Thursday that Mayor Adams’ administration cannot slap a financial penalty on retired municipal workers who opt out of the city’s controversial new Medicare plan, marking a major win for a group of retirees who fought the health insurance switch in court for months.

The effort by the administration to levy a $191 monthly fee on retirees who want to keep their current coverage instead of enrolling in the new Medicare Advantage Plan runs counter to longstanding local administrative law, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Lyle Frank wrote in a decision.

The law in question, Frank continued, requires the city to “pay the entire cost of health insurance coverage for city employees, city retirees and their dependents.” Any attempt to impose a premium or other cost for coverage is thereby illegal, he ruled.

“This court holds that this is the only reasonable way of interpreting this section,” the judge wrote.

Frank’s decision caps a heated court battle between the city and a group of retired city workers that began last year under former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration.

In announcing the plan last fall, de Blasio’s administration presented Medicare Advantage as a fiscal boon that would save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars every year because it is subsidized by the federal government at a higher rate. At the same time, the administration maintained the new plan would provide the city’s roughly 250,000 Medicare-aged retirees with health coverage that’s comparable to what they’re currently receiving.

But the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees, a group of ex-cops, firefighters and other retired workers, sued over the move, charging that the new plan would result in inferior coverage, including by imposing complex new preauthorization rules for specific medical procedures.

After vowing on the campaign trail to make sure the new plan wouldn’t be a “bait and switch” for retired workers, Adams announced last month that he would move ahead with implementing it as envisioned by de Blasio, angering retirees who said he was going back on his promise by keeping the $191 penalty in place.

 

(Former Mayor de Blasio's) Mayor Adams' and NYC Health Commissioner Chokshi's vaccine mandate hits the 11th hour for non-vaxxed municipal workers

  

NY Daily News

Mayor Adams to city workers: Get vaccinated or get lost.

The Adams administration has alerted nearly 4,000 unvaccinated municipal employees — including cops and firefighters — that they will lose their jobs if they do not get their coronavirus shots by the end of next week.

Adams’ shot across the bow came in letters issued to the affected workers this week informing them that they have until Feb. 11 to get inoculated.

Speaking at City Hall on Monday, Adams said the ultimatum is about safety and argued that city employees have had long enough to comply with the municipal workforce vaccine mandate, which took effect Nov. 1.

“Safety is not only to stop the bullet, a knife or some other item. Safety is COVID. COVID is taking lives,” the mayor said. “There must be rules, and we must follow them. The rule is to get vaccinated if you are a city employee.”

The roughly 4,000 workers at risk of getting the boot fall into two categories, according to data provided by City Hall.

Eric On The Street

Chaos Erupts when Eric Adams comes out of his office. Protesters against mandates confront and yell at him because of the mandates #BreakingNews #NYC #MANDATE pic.twitter.com/46slZjie8y

— Leeroy Johnson (@LeeroyPress) November 3, 2021

In less than 24 hours, @ericadamsfornyc went from schmoozing with the elite elected, political insider and corporate ruling classes to getting mobbed on the streets by his incoming constituency.

This actually shows optics of being a man for all the people. #NYC #HoldTheLine https://t.co/DkS2wK9jIZ

— This is JQ LLC (@ImpunityCity) November 3, 2021