NEW YORK (AP) – New York City’s ailing prison system faces more problems: The possible suspension of hundreds of officers for not getting vaccinated against COVID-19 before the Tuesday night deadline.
The city’s Department of Corrections reported that 77% of its employees had received at least one dose by 5 p.m. Monday.
Corrections Department Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi said Wednesday morning that some 700 employees who have asked to be exempted for medical or religious reasons can continue to work while their cases are evaluated.
On Wednesday afternoon, city council officials reported that 570 workers could be suspended without pay for not complying with the rule, but that there will not be an exact number until workers arrive at their jobs to start their shifts without proof of vaccination.
The deadline for prison employees to be vaccinated was extended by one month due to staff shortages.
Workers who have not requested an exception and who did not show proof of vaccination by 5 p.m. Tuesday will be discharged without pay and must surrender any firearms and protective equipment provided by the city, officials said.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has implemented similar mandates in other sectors, said he expects the vaccination rate to increase as employees find themselves without pay or have their requests to be exempted denied.
“I predict that these numbers will increase significantly in the coming days,” De Blasio told reporters at a virtual press conference on Wednesday afternoon.
Given the imminent arrival of the deadline, the mayor issued an emergency executive order on Monday with the aim of reinforcing the prison staff in which he authorizes a change to shifts of 12 hours from the usual 8 hours.
The president of the prison guards union criticized the move, calling it “reckless and wrong.” The union said it would sue to block the mandate, the same tactic a police union tried in late October as the vaccine requirement for police officers approached. The police union lost and the mandate went into effect as scheduled.
Benny Boscio Jr., the president of the Association of Corrections Officials, said staffing in municipal jails is just as bad or worse than in October, when De Blasio announced that employees would have additional time to fulfill the mandate. vaccination.
Less than a hundred of the 600 additional guards that had been promised have been hired, Boscio said, and none of them have started working in prisons. Resignations and retirements have piled up and guards continue to work 24-hour shifts, with no time to eat or rest, he added.
———
Follow Michelle L. Price on Twitter as twitter.com/michellelprice, and Michael Sisak as twitter.com/mikesisak,
