Chicago Firefighters Lose COVID Vaccine Mandate Challenge

Chicago Tribune

An arbitrator has ruled that several unions, including one representing firefighters, must follow Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s COVID-19 vaccination policy.

The mayor announced her controversial mandate in August, requiring that all city employees have until Dec. 31 to get fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. But the unions successfully argued that their collective bargaining agreements gave them the right for arbitration over the matter.

“The City is pleased that a neutral arbitrator selected by both parties upheld the City’s right to issue a vaccine mandate to its employees,” a spokeswoman with the Law Department said. “The arbitrator further upheld the City’s right to place employees who do not become vaccinated by the deadline in a no-pay status.”

The labor groups bound by the decision include the Chicago Firefighters Union Local 2 as well as the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Under the arbitration ruling issued Wednesday, the union employees have until the end of Dec. 31 to get the first shot and until Jan. 31 for the second if they opted for a two-dose vaccine. If employees covered by the decision don’t comply and don’t have a religious or medical exemption, they will lose pay.

In the decision involving the firefighters union, the arbitrator shot down its argument that language in its collective bargaining agreement, which refers to vaccination “on a voluntary basis,” applied to the current situation.

“This Arbitrator is not convinced that the parties contemplated a once-in-a-lifetime worldwide pandemic wherein the Department, exercising management rights, concluded that the preventive inoculation was necessary to carry out its mission,” the ruling says.

The arbitrator also decided that the city was correct in maintaining its no-pay status was indeed nondisciplinary and not subject to due process.

“Failure to become vaccinated by a date certain could indeed render a member not fit for duty until becoming vaccinated,” the ruling says. “Thus, the placement on no-pay status for failure to become vaccinated by a date certain does not violate the CBA.”

Most recently, some members of the Chicago fire and police departments have protested another plank of Lightfoot’s vaccination policy that called for city employees to report their vaccination status by Oct. 15. Those who indicated they were unvaccinated had to undergo regular COVID-19 testing.

Dozens of firefighters and paramedics were sent home without pay for defying the reporting requirement as a result. The mayor’s office’s most recent figures had 76 Chicago Fire Department members placed on no-pay status since Oct. 15, 15 of whom remained in that designation as of Thursday.

In October, the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police filed a lawsuit against the city arguing the vaccination policy violated the union’s collective bargaining agreement. The city also sued the FOP alleging its president, John Catanzara, was encouraging an illegal strike, but the city later dropped the litigation.

A Cook County judge suspended the Dec. 31 vaccination deadline for unionized Chicago Police Department members and sent the matter to arbitration. The FOP and the city will hash out that issue starting Dec. 27.

Jeffrey Howard, executive vice president of Service Employees International Union Local 73, which represents nearly 1,000 city of Chicago workers who are subject to the arbitration ruling, said that through the labor groups’ efforts, “we have succeeded in obtaining additional time for workers to obtain the vaccination shots mandated by the city and we will continue to advocate for all of our members as the policy is implemented.”

He added that SEIU Local 73 “believes that getting vaccinated is the best thing (workers) can do to protect themselves, their families, and the people they serve.”

At an unrelated news conference Thursday, Lightfoot said her administration will continue to win over challenges to her mandates.

To the leaders of city employee unions, she said, “Work with us to save lives.”

Officials are spending time on resources and litigation when they should be working together to get the word out, Lightfoot said.

“I hope the labor leaders, after yesterday’s decision, will link arms with us to continue that fight,” Lightfoot said.

Other unions covered by the arbitrator’s ruling are the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 21, Teamsters Local 700 and Coalition of Unionized Public Employees.