When someone tells you to jump off a cliff—you laugh at the idea and tell the person to get some help—you do not jump. In San Jose the workers maybe be the smartest in the State. When told to take a dangerous drug—for which government and the drug companies refuse to take responsibility for, the worker laughs and move on—why take advise from government hacks?
“San Jose has extended the deadline for its COVID-19 booster mandate after hundreds of employees failed to comply in time for the initial cutoff.
The deadline for the new booster mandate — previously set to expire on Feb. 11 — has been pushed out two weeks to Feb. 25 to “allow for additional time for employees to be ‘up-to-date’ with their COVID-19 vaccination,” according to an email sent out to the city’s workforce Tuesday afternoon.
While 95% of the city’s workforce is fully vaccinated, just 82% of its more than 6,000 actively working and booster-eligible employees have submitted proof of a booster shot, according to data from the city’s Office of Employee Relations. That leaves about 800 workers currently in defiance of the order.
I would keep the 800—and fire the rest. If they would jump off a cliff, is that the type of worker we want, someone without the ability to think for themselves?
San Jose delays COVID booster mandate after employees fail to comply
“Our goal is really not to discipline employees,” said the city’s HR director
By MAGGIE ANGST, Mercury News, 2/16/22
San Jose has extended the deadline for its COVID-19 booster mandate after hundreds of employees failed to comply in time for the initial cutoff.
The deadline for the new booster mandate — previously set to expire on Feb. 11 — has been pushed out two weeks to Feb. 25 to “allow for additional time for employees to be ‘up-to-date’ with their COVID-19 vaccination,” according to an email sent out to the city’s workforce Tuesday afternoon.
While 95% of the city’s workforce is fully vaccinated, just 82% of its more than 6,000 actively working and booster-eligible employees have submitted proof of a booster shot, according to data from the city’s Office of Employee Relations. That leaves about 800 workers currently in defiance of the order.
City officials expect that figure to rise as the city provides more booster clinic options in the next two weeks and as more employees become eligible for a booster shot based on the timing of their previous vaccines.
“Our goal is really not to discipline employees,” San Jose Human Resource Director Jennifer Schembri said in an interview. “Our goal is to get people boosted, and to the extent that we can give additional time to get more people into compliance, that is what we want to do.”
The city’s decision to extend the deadline rather than move to immediately discipline workers falls in line with a more lenient approach San Jose officials have taken throughout their negotiations on employee vaccination requirements.
In the case of the city’s initial vaccination mandate, which went into effect in October 2021, city officials announced a deal a day before it was set to take effect that gave all city employees a one-week grace period to come into compliance and offered employees an option to test twice weekly if they don’t want to get vaccinated and were willing to forgo one week of pay.
City employees are currently required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 with either two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or one dose of Johnson & Johnson. To be in compliance with the city’s new booster mandate, employees must also obtain a booster dose of a COVID-19 vaccination. Employees who are not yet eligible for a booster are mandated to get a shot within 15 days of becoming eligible.
Just like the first round, employees are allowed to request a medical or religious exemption to the booster requirement. As of Wednesday, about 50 city employees have approved or pending religious or medical exemptions.
Those who refuse to get boosted and are not granted medical or religious exemptions can continue working so long as they agree to twice-weekly testing and are willing to face up to 40 hours of unpaid leave — the same level of discipline given to those who failed to adhere to the original vaccination mandate.
Although San Jose’s employee booster mandate was unanimously approved by the city council last month following the height of the Omicron surge, at least one city leader is now questioning whether the city should continue pursuing it.
Concerned that the city’s vaccine and booster mandate policies are causing a “decline in workforce morale,” councilmember and mayoral candidate Raul Peralez is proposing that the city transition away from the mandate and instead simply require that any employee who does not submit proof of a booster shot must get tested twice a week, eliminating any fear of disciplinary action.
“I’m not looking at going backward, what I’m looking at is how are we going to progress and I don’t think it’s going to be to continually mandate boosters every few months,” Peralez said in an interview Wednesday. “… I feel that this is a much more sustainable and better long-term model that we can adapt and transition into.”
Peralez said he was motivated to propose this new approach based on the region’s declining COVID-19 rates, community trends showing people are less inclined to get boosted and a fear of losing a significant number of our city employees, specifically police officers and firefighters, who are frustrated by the city’s mandate process. According to Peralez, several city workers were denied exemptions to the booster mandate without any explanation and at least one worker is resigning over the issue.
Sean Pritchard, president of the San Jose Police Officers Association, said he supports the city revisiting its mandate policy, as Peralez has proposed.
As of Wednesday, 1,211 of the 1,584 actively working and booster-eligible employees in the San Jose Police Department — or about 77% — have submitted proof of a booster shot. At least 33 police department employees have approved or pending exemptions, according to the city’s Office of Employee Relations.
“With restrictions being loosened throughout California and the nation, it makes sense to re-evaluate the mandate policy enacted last year as it relates to boosters and making sure our chronically understaffed police department is able to function,” he said in a statement.
However, Mayor Sam Liccardo, who originally proposed the booster mandate, said the city should stay the course.
“We have many employees who are concerned about coming back into a workplace if they’re exposed to many unvaccinated colleagues, and we need to do everything we can to make it safe for employees and the public,” he said.
San Jose firefighters are in their own unique situation because they’re subject to a Santa Clara County public health order that went into effect Feb. 1 mandating that workers in higher-risk settings, including fire departments, be boosted. Those who have failed to comply have been put on indefinite unpaid leave, regardless of whether or not the city of San Jose granted them exemptions previously.
Alex Bruni is one of about 40 San Jose firefighters who were previously granted exemptions from the city of San Jose’s vaccine order but are now unable to work under the county’s policy.
“To remove myself and fellow firefighters, who have exemptions and were on the front lines during this entire pandemic, from the job we love is heartbreaking and cruel,” Bruni said.
