Mayor Fires 1,430 City Workers who Refused Their Shots

By Yehudit Garmaise

After three months of warning, 1,430 city workers from 29 agencies were fired today after refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19. The employees, who had had not been reporting to work, were preventing the city from filling their crucial positions, City Hall said. 

The agency that lost the most workers was the city’s largest: the Department of Education, which employees more than 100,000 New Yorkers, lost a stunning 914 workers, who comprised two-thirds of those who asked not to return to their jobs. 

Coming in second was the New York City Housing Authority, which lost 101 employees. 

The Department of Corrections, the NYPD, and the FDNY, which were the agencies whose workers most loudly protested former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s vaccine mandates, ended up comprising only 1% of the layoffs, according to a tweet from Amanda Eisenberg, a Politico reporter.

In the end, 75 correction officers, 36 police, and 25 firefighters were let go after they would not get their shots.

"They have not been teaching in schools, patrolling our streets, or maintaining our parks, yet they have been stopping the city from hiring individuals who are willing to do the jobs New Yorkers need them to do," Mayor Adams said. “I did not fire them. They quit.”

Since Jan. 31, a whopping 939, or 40%, of the approximately 2,400 city employees who were affected by the Feb. 11 deadline got their shots after not working nor getting paid since November.

As the COVID positivity rate in the city today fell below 2% for the first time since late November, more employees continue to return to their offices, and masks mandates are dropped, New Yorkers look ahead to a spring that blossoms with health and new opportunities.