Unvaxxed City of Hamilton employees will not be fired; mayor votes against it
Published April 20, 2022 at 7:52 pm
Hamilton will back off on terminating city employees who are not vaccinated against COVID-19, although Mayor Fred Eisenberger likened doing so to a “get out of jail free pass.”
By a 6-4 vote at the end of an eight-and-a-half-hour general issues committee meeting, the elected leadership accepted a staff report to suspend the planned COVID vaccination requirement that it passed three months ago. The measure that was adopted tonight (April 20) would have to be ratified by the full council.
Under the amended policy, unvaccinated city employees will no longer face rapid antigen testing of May 2. There will be exemptions. Employees at city lodges will have an RAT every day. Hamilton Paramedic Services will maintain its RAT
program of unvaccinated employees prior to the start of each shift. The Red Hill Child Care Centre will also require thrice-weekly RATs of of employees.
Around 94 per cent of municipal employees are vaccinated. Some 441 in total have been undergoing regular rapid antigen testing, and 64 are on leave after opting against complying with that request.
Mayor Eisenberger said he expected the motion would pass. But he called out vaccine-hesitant and vaccine-refusing City of Hamilton employees.
“This is a tough one for me — I did recall a presenter earlier today suggesting that if we were to do anything but this (staff) recommendation, that this would be considered punitive,” he said. “I kind of see it the other way around. In some measure, I see this as a reward for not having done what everyone else actually did to help protect our community, our fellow employees and our city. I keep hearing from some of the supporters of the 400 (unvaccinated employees) that they are our fellow citizens we are all in this together.
Videos
“I just wonder where that care and concern was when they fully knew that getting the vaccine would help keep our community open, would help protect one another from being seriously ill. I see this as a reward for basically saying for saying, you can all care about your community, 7,000 (city) employees (who are vaccinated), we’re just going to look after ourselves. This was a process that was aligned to looking after each other.
“For those who said, ‘I’m a little fearful, I’m not going to get the vaccine,’ I was fearful too. My kids were fearful. But they got them any way. Why? Because it was important to do, to avoid the kind of broad impacts that we have seen in our community. So I see what we are doing as some kind of a reward, some kind of ‘enh, I don’t need to, you folks go and care about our community. You go ahead and get vaccinated.’
“In my view, if you’re an employee of a City of Hamilton, you have responsibilities, What I see is a group of people that essentially said, ‘We don’t think so.’ So I take particular umbrage to this. I have no doubt this will pass, but if I can tell you if I were, and I am part of that group of 7,000 people, I’d be pretty, pretty annoyed, that these folks got a pass, they got a reward, they got a get out of jail free pass for saying they’re not going to be part of this process. Am I standing on principle? I am. But that principle is sound.”
” … For those who didn’t want it, there’s got to be a consequence.”
Ward 14 Coun. Terry Whitehead and Ward 7 Coun. Esther Pauls, who were the only ones to vote against the policy in January, cast the deciding votes. Couns. Brad Clark (Ward 9), Jason Farr (2), Maria Pearson (10) and Arlene VanderBeek (13) were also in favour.
Mayor Eisenberger and Couns. Rick Danko (8), Brenda Johnson (11) and Maureen Wilson (1) voted against the staff recommendation.
“We don’t know the circumstances of the others who did not take it,” Whitehead stated during a lengthy debate on the motion. “We need to pull the community together rather than divide it.”
Farr affirmed that nothing is set in stone.
“What I see this as is us trying out a staying of the policy, this is a staying of the policy, and what effect that will have,” Farr said. “That is the way I am perceiving this right now… fluidity is one of the keywords of this pandemic. Over and over, it has a been a test of our governance, our patience and our politics.
“What’s before us in two months may be completely different. That’s just how this pandemic has rolled.”
‘Very, very helpful’
The city actually started requiring proof of vaccination, with the option for twice-weekly rapid testing, last August. Employees began being placed on leave in November, but the anticipated non-compliance was lower than expected.
City of Hamilton executive director of human resources Lora Fontana told councillors late in the afternoon that the requirements have motivated employees to get their jabs.
I think that this policy was very, very helpful in our ability to get the vast majority of our employees fully vaccinated,” Fontana said in a response to a question from Coun. Farr.
“We are very, very pleased with the 94 per cent. One hundred per cent would have been the ultimate preference, but 94 per cent is something to proud of and we are certainly pleased with that uptake. I think (the spectre of a mandate) has been helpful.”
Safety measures have been a moving target for more than two years during the pandemic, and there are potential legal issues with absolute requirements. But Mayor Eisenberger also wondered about how unvaccinated employees contracting COVID-19 will affect the city.
“Here’s my leading question: for those that come back who are unvaccinated and get ill, what happens?” he said. “Knowing full well they were able to get vaccinated, they did not have a medical exemption, and now they get ill and they’re unable to work for the City of Hamilton because they have COVID, what happens? I’ll leave that question dangling out there.”
insauga's Editorial Standards and Policies advertising