Boston workers organize against vaccine mandate as thousands face termination - wgbh.org

A group of city workers are organizing to fight Mayor Michelle Wu's vaccine mandate, announced last week, which removes the option for city workers to get regularly tested instead of getting vaccinated against COVID-19, unless they qualify for a medical or religious exemption.

Approximately 2,300 city employees and contractors are out of compliance and face termination unless they present proof of vaccination by Jan. 15, according to a spokesperson from Wu's administration. Proof of a second dose will be required by Feb. 15.

"They really have removed choice. It's either do what we say, or we'll make you do it," said Shana Cottone, a Boston Police sergeant and president of Boston First Responders United, a grassroots group of city employees formed in July of last year. "If you don't do it, we will take everything away from you, and we will ruin you so that you are nothing."

Cottone's group is in the preliminary stages of preparing a legal challenge to the mandate, planning to demand that city employees return to their jobs without vaccination and receive financial damages.

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"We are gearing up to see what's going to have to happen in terms of filing suit, but we don't want to have to do that," Cottone said. "We don't have to do any of this. It's a waste of everyone's time, and it's a waste of taxpayer dollars. It's not fiscally responsible, it's not morally responsible. It's morally bankrupt."

AFSCME Council 93, a union which represents thousands of essential workers across the city, said it hopes to negotiate with the Wu administration to reinstate the option of weekly testing in lieu of a vaccine.

"Our members are subject to an agreement negotiated less than three months ago that allows workers, who for any number of reasons are reluctant to receive a vaccine, to choose a regular testing option," AFSCME 93 executive director Mark Bernard told GBH News in a statement. "This policy is working well and is in line with the Federal Government's policy implemented by the Department of Labor."

The city is acting within its authority, reacting to a surge in cases of COVID-19 and aligning the city's plan with state-wide and national measures, according to a spokesperson from Wu's office.

"This plan builds in appropriate time for compliance," a city spokesperson said in a statement to GBH News, "and our expectation is that all of our city's workforce will join us in protecting our communities by taking every action possible to end this pandemic."

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