Towards a compulsory vaccination for civil servants in California and New York

Posted on Jul 27, 2021 4:07 PMUpdated on Jul 27, 2021, 4:45 PM

The vaccination certificate arouses interest across the Atlantic. While in France the bill on the extension of the health pass must be examined by the Constitutional Council on August 5, and Italy plans to to introduce his “green pass” on August 6, this time the idea is gaining ground in the United States, where the Delta variant is also gaining ground.

California and New York City plan to require public sector employees to have a certificate stating that they have been vaccinated. Otherwise, they should be tested regularly to prove that they are not carriers of the virus.

“Pandemic in the unvaccinated”

While cases of contamination are on the rise in the United States (nearly 56,000 on average over the last week), a clear divide is beginning to emerge between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated: nearly 99% of people who have died of Covid- 19 in June had not received an injection according to US health authorities.

“We are now facing a pandemic among the unvaccinated,” Gavin Newsom, the governor of the state of California, confirmed Monday, where more than 75% of the population has received at least one dose of the vaccine. As of August, all state employees as well as medical personnel will have to prove that they have been vaccinated or be tested every week.

Same story for New York, where Democratic Mayor Bill De Blasio decreed similar measures for city employees – including police, firefighters, teachers – starting in September. Caregivers will be affected from next week. The Town Hall has also announced that employees refusing to submit to these new measures will be immediately laid off.

Legal misunderstanding

Decisions that have not left indifferent. District Council 37 – the largest union of municipal workers in New York City – wants City Hall to come to the negotiating table before implementing these measures.

On the side of The New York City Fire Department Bureau of Emergency Medical Services (FDNY EMS), which represents nearly 3,000 paramedics, rescuers and fire safety inspectors, the reaction was sharper. “These decisions must be the subject of collective bargaining. The City and the Mayor cannot neglect the civil liberties of workers, ”insists Oren Barzilay, a local representative of the organization. “The Food and Drug Administration [l’Agence autorisant les denrées alimentaires et médicales aux Etats-Unis] has not yet issued final authorizations for the Covid-19 vaccines, which is causing concern among some ”. At issue here: the emergency use authorization issued by the FDA for vaccines, which stipulates that individuals have the choice to refuse these products.

For the time being, this notion is causing controversy from a legal point of view. A document from the US Department of Justice – consulted by Bloomberg – states that the statute in question “does not prohibit public or private entities from imposing vaccination”, but that it comes with a duty ” to inform potential vaccinated people ”. Several lawsuits have already been opened against employers seeking to make vaccination compulsory.

–