Having it two ways: New York City public employee unions’ inconsistent protests against two COVID safety mandates

Henry Garrido, executive director of the city’s largest municipal union, District Council 37, is upset that Mayor de Blasio forced all city workers back to the office last week, ending 18 months of COVID-era remote work. He complained in an op-ed in these pages and filed a formal improper practice petition with the city Office of Collective Bargaining. Garrido has lost more than 200 DC 37 members to the plague (which is a majority of the city workers felled by the virus).

There is an argument that the now-universal spread of the delta variant should be a cause for a reassessment of plans, as a number of private companies have delayed or postponed their employees’ return. However, Garrido is also part of a lawsuit by all the municipal unions against de Blasio’s “no jab, no job” vaccine mandate for all adults working in city schools.

Which is it, Henry? How can you claim that the workplace isn’t safe while you are suing to stop the single largest public workplaces to be made as safe as possible via a universal vaccine requirement?

We like the school vaccination rule, which is due to begin on Sept. 27, as a better public health measure than the option of a weekly COVID test. Ideally, it should be extended to all employees in all government agencies with proper and limited exceptions for rare medical circumstances. The religious exemption to vaccination for schoolkids was removed by New York State two years ago, before COVID, when it was being wrongly abused during a dangerous measles outbreak.

Garrido, like all the union leaders, says that he is pro-vaccine, but that the city can’t impose it on employees. A Manhattan state Supreme Court justice has agreed to a hearing on Wednesday. Employers requiring a fully FDA-approved vaccine seems pretty well established, and the unions darkly warning about “the violation of bodily integrity” is reminiscent of the “precious bodily fluids” from “Dr. Strangelove.”

The unions should have learned to stop worrying and love the shot.