It is “downright unpatriotic” for city union leaders to fight against a COVID-19 vaccine mandate, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio charged on Tuesday.
“There are some union leaders who have stepped up in recent days and said, ‘OK, guys, the law is the law, this went to court, it was decided it’s time to get vaccinated,’” De Blasio stated during an interview with MSNBC. “Some union leaders have done the right thing. I want to give them credit.”
“But several unions have been, in my view, downright unpatriotic the way they’ve handled this, because they have put their own internal politics ahead of the needs of the people,” he added.
On Tuesday, roughly 2,300 firefighters called in sick, rendering 18 companies “temporarily out of service.” On average, around 1,ooo firefighters called in sick daily.
“There [are] a few very, in my view, not only angry but wrongheaded folks spreading lies, spreading this information and are endangering, actually, their colleagues,” de Blasio fumed. “They’re endangering their fellow New Yorkers.”
“That is unconscionable, and I assure you, they’re going to experience some consequences for what they’ve done,” the mayor added.
De Blasio announced that 9,000 city workers have been placed on unpaid leave for declining to comply with the vaccine mandate that took effect Monday.
The Associated Press noted:
About 9 in 10 city workers covered by the mandate have gotten vaccinated and there have been no disruptions to city services as a result of staffing shortages, de Blasio told reporters at his daily news briefing. New York has more than 300,000 city employees. Firehouses remained open and sanitation workers made an extra pickup on Sunday to ensure trash wouldn’t pile up, the mayor said.
Last week, FDNY Firefighters Association President suggested the mandate could slow the response time of firefighters and potentially cost lives.
“The department is scrambling to field a team. If they do follow through and send home 30 percent of New York City firefighters, it’s going to be extremely difficult to staff every company. I just feel it’s not physically possible,” Andrew Ansbro told the Fox News Channel.
“I looked over the statistics from last year and based on last year’s numbers, everyday in New York City there are 65 serious fires on average, there’s 1400 life threatening medical emergencies everyday on average and 80 heart attacks every single day in New York City on average,” he added. “If you increase response times in any of these responses, there are heart attack victims that are going to be out of the window of survivability if a normal response would have been eight to six minutes goes and becomes 15 to 20 minutes. You just can’t survive. If it’s a serious heart attack, you are not going to survive.”
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