Mayor De Blasio strikes deal with NYC unions over COVID-19 vaccine mandate

Mayor Bill de Blasio has managed to strike a deal with the NYC unions over the vaccine mandates. The deal allots more time for the unvaccinated workers to get exemptions from the COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

The deal allows the city workers to apply for special exemptions against the vaccine mandates for either religious or medical reason. The employees are allowed to work with payment while their applications for the exemptions are pending, however if their exemption is denied they will be placed on unpaid leave if the workers decide to appeal. There will be weekly testing for those unvaccinated.

The union heads said they did offer a counteroffer which was to lift the mandate and just switch back to the previous policy which was getting tested or the vaccine. The unions have also urged their members to file the exemptions however.

New Yorkers are particularly happy of the agreement due to the sanitation workers strike which led to accumulation of trash on the streets everywhere. A former US marine said “It makes me angry, oh yeah. You take a shower, you come out, sit on the bench and you smell garbage. You don’t want to come out in the morning smelling that cr–p.”

A building superintendent Denis Ventura stated “If they don’t come, I just have to keep putting more out, one tenant told me. ‘In the night I see the rats.’” Another citizen of New York City said “it makes the neighborhood look bad.”

Absent from the deal striked between the unions were the FDNY and EMS workers. Both unions have fiercely opposed de Blasio’s vaccine mandates [NY Post].