FDNY unions call for Mayor Eric Adams to lift vaccine mandates for city workers: ‘One rule for all’

FDNY unions are questioning New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams’ determination to elevate vaccine mandates for celebrities and athletes whereas unvaccinated first responders within the metropolis proceed to lose their jobs due to their COVID-19 vaccine standing.

FDNY-Firefighters Affiliation President Andrew Ansbro and FDNY-Fireplace Officers Affiliation President Lt. James McCarthy held a joint press convention on Saturday and known as for Adams to rescind vaccine mandates for firefighters within the metropolis and “sit down with the unions” for a dialogue.

“We’re right here to say that we assist the revocation of the vaccine mandate that the mayor introduced on Thursday,” McCarthy stated. “We predict that it ought to be prolonged, as nicely. We assist the revocation of the mandate for the athletes and performers that work in New York Metropolis. We predict that the people who work for New York Metropolis also needs to have the mandate relocated for them.”

NYC WON’T REHIRE UNVACCINATED WORKERS, MAYOR SAYS

McCarthy, noting how “important” firefighters are to the Empire State’s financial restoration, touted the work New York firefighters have been tasked with all through the pandemic.

“We have been right here responding to COVID emergencies with out masks, with out testing, with out vaccines,” McCarthy stated. “We have been uncovered, we ultimately uncovered our households, lots of our members got here down with COVID. However we nonetheless made the town secure for everyone, and we wish to be handled now like these new visitors are.”

With out first responders, lots of whom have been compelled out of their jobs attributable to their unwillingness to get vaccinated, the occasions answerable for income within the metropolis wouldn’t be going down, McCarthy stated.

New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams
(Picture by Jimin Kim/VIEWpress through Getty Photographs)

“If we’re not right here – the police, the hearth – making the town safer, nobody can are available and attend these video games and eat, attend theater productions,” McCarthy stated, including that the firefighters are asking to be handled “at the least as nicely” because the athletes and celebrities performing within the metropolis.

Talking on behalf of firefighters who have been compelled to get vaccinated, and even those that have but to get vaccinated in hopes {that a} “cheap lodging” is met, Ansbro stated the “science has modified” because the mandate was imposed and insisted it ought to be completed away with.

“If you are going to take away the vaccine mandate for sure folks within the metropolis, it is advisable to take away it for everyone within the metropolis,” Ansbro stated. “For those who’re gonna observe the science, science is gonna let you know there is no hazard proper now and placing tons of of firefighters, cops, and different emergency employees out of labor will not be in the very best curiosity of the town. It isn’t secure.”

Ansbro urged Adams to “bear in mind the place he got here from” as he makes mayoral choices.

An FDNY fireplace engine makes a flip onto Broadway because it speeds to a name on November 28, 2018, in New York Metropolis.
(Gary Hershorn/Getty Photographs)

“He got here from working as a transit cop beneath that stadium in Penn Station” taking care of New Yorkers, Ansbro stated of Adams.

“We’re each calling on the mayor to sit down down with the unions, sit down with us, and focus on what is going on on with this mandate, the place we are actually and the way this impacts the town going ahead,” Ansbro stated. “When he was mayor-elect he advised de Blasio to sit down down with the unions. Now it is his flip to observe by…”

“Mayor Adams, please sit down with us,” Ansbro stated as he known as for the mayor to implement “one rule for all.”

On Thursday, Adams formally exempted athletes and performers from the town’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate, making the announcement at Citi Subject alongside Mets basic supervisor Sandy Alderson.

Nurse Carolyn Ruyle prepares a dose of a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at Lurie Kids’s hospital Friday, Nov. 5, 2021, in Chicago.
(AP Picture/Nam Y. Huh)

“I’m going to make some robust selections. Individuals are not going to agree with a few of them,” Adams stated. “I need to transfer this metropolis ahead.”

Adams additionally stated his administration has no plans as of now to rehire unvaccinated metropolis employees.

Ansbro estimated round 400 to 500 firefighters are liable to dropping their jobs as a result of they continue to be unvaccinated.

Round 1,400 metropolis workers have been fired earlier this 12 months for failing to adjust to the town’s coronavirus vaccine mandate.