City workers fired over vax blast state effort to hire federal workers

Citing efforts by the state to recruit recently fired federal workers, city employees terminated for refusing to get the Covid vaccine are demanding that Governor Kathy Hochul reinstate them.

In an open letter sent to Hochul Friday, New York Workers for Choice, an advocate group that represents the unvaccinated fired city workers, and hundreds of workers criticized the state’s efforts to hire federal workers fired by the Trump administration while not making similar efforts on behalf of municipal employees terminated for not complying with the city’s Covid-era vaccine mandate.

Although Mayor Eric Adams lifted the vaccine mandate for city workers in February 2023, “neither New York State nor New York City has done anything to get the experienced, tenured and valuable employees, who were unlawfully removed without due process, reinstated,” the letter says. “This is why NYC and NYS workers are rightfully stunned this week by your maudlin reception for fired federal workers, your rush to meet with them and your offer to hire all of them.”

About 25,000 federal workers have been fired as part of the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts to shrink the workforce, while about 75,000 employees have taken buyouts, according to Reuters.

New York State — which has more than 7,000 job openings — has launched an ad campaign to attract the terminated workers. “The federal government might say, ‘You’re fired,’ but here in New York, we say, ‘You’re hired,’” Hochul says in the ad. “Whatever your skills, we value public service.”

Thousands of city workers were fired for refusing to comply with the Covid vaccine mandate in February 2022. New York Workers for Choice, as well as members of the City Council’s Common Sense caucus, have sought to get the fired workers reinstated without requiring them to sign a waiver prohibiting them from suing over back pay or civil-service rights in order to return.

Civil service rules also state that employees who return to work for the city more than a year after their departure would lose their seniority and be considered rehires. Thousands of workers were terminated or resigned because of the vaccine mandate, but many of the former employees seeking to return to their positions have refused to sign the waiver.

Although state legislation sponsored by Staten Island State Senator Andrew Lanza would exempt city workers seeking reinstatement to their former jobs from having to sign a waiver, the bill has stagnated.

“After almost four years of ignoring the wrongfully terminated unvaccinated New York workers’ request to be reinstated with back pay and benefits for violating our constitutional and labor rights, you are launching a major hiring push to recruit federal workers … while bills submitted last year to the New York State Legislature and a Resolution in the New York City Council to decide the fate of dedicated public servants sit on desks in Albany and Manhattan, gathering dust,” the letter states.

Nearly 500 former educators, firefighters, sanitation workers and other city employees signed onto the letter.

Workers for Choice also highlighted that while Hochul acknowledged that the departed federal workers should not be vilified, “terminated public servants who were cheered on the frontline during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic were … left to suffer by the wayside.”

“You have engaged in hypocrisy and two-faced leadership by ignoring us, while embracing illegal migrants and bemoaning the federal workers’ 14 days of hardship,” the letter concludes. “Given that this is an open letter, we hope that you will acknowledge and attempt a respectful and proper response rather than continue to ignore the above facts and events.”

clewis@thechiefleader.com