Judge won’t stop Boston coronavirus vaccine mandate ahead of deadline

Mayor Michelle Wu’s worker vaccine mandate will move ahead, a judge ruled just days before enforcement is due to begin.

“I will not enjoin the enforcement of the policy as of January 15,” Suffolk Superior Judge Jeffrey Locke said following a Wednesday hearing. “I think the public health emergency now is of such a nature that it outweighs the competing claims of harm by the plaintiff.”

Locke heard from both sides in a lawsuit ahead of the Saturday deadline, when the city will begin to place workers on unpaid leave if they haven’t received at least one coronavirus vaccine. The city argued this was necessary due to the current massive spread of the omicron variant, while the three public-safety unions suing to stop the implementation of the mandate said the city had skipped over key negotiating steps even though the situation hadn’t changed that much.

Ultimately, Locke sided with the city, agreeing with their arguments centered around public health.

“I don’t think I can overemphasize the health crisis,” said the city’s attorney, Robert Hillman. He said that though breakthrough cases obviously are still happening among the vaccinated, they’re less severe and less likely to spread to others.

Patrick Bryant, one of the attorneys for the Boston Police Superior Officers Federation, which filed the suit along with the Boston Police Detectives Benevolent Society and Boston Firefighters Union Local 718, said that allowing the city to suddenly change the terms of its agreement with the unions undermines collective bargaining.

He also said the conditions on the ground haven’t changed so much to warrant the change from the previously negotiated plan, which allowed employees who didn’t want to get the shot to provide proof of a weekly negative test instead.

“Right now there is a plan in place that keeps people safe, there is a plan in place where the majority of employees are vaccinated,” he said.

Hillman countered, “We know with omicron that weekly testing is no longer adequate.”

The lawyers for both sides said that as many as 440 of these three unions’ employees are unvaccinated and will face removal from work. Most of those — 353 — are with the fire department, per a count from several weeks ago cited by both sides. Under the new city rules, everyone has to have one shot by this Saturday, and be fully vaccinated by Feb. 15.

Wu’s been inundated with protestors pushing back against the new mandate, sometimes at city hall and at other times at her Roslindale home.

In the hearing, both sides hurled allegations of bad-faith negotiating, with each claiming the other simply wasn’t playing ball.

In the end, Bryant cited the infamous summer of 2004, when a clash between then-Mayor Thomas Menino and the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association threatened to derail the Democratic National Convention held here. Then, arbitrators hurried to reach an agreement, and quickly did so, averting major problems in what Bryant presented as a model for this situation.

Locke, replied dryly, ” All right, so all we need is another national convention that here in Boston, and this will all be resolved.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/34QaT2J