FDNY/Covid: Termination Talk
As soon as 1 December.
From the Chief Leader:
New York Uniformed Firefighters president Andy Ansbro says, “We are being honest with them about where this is going. The days of holding out and thinking this might have a positive outcome are closing. If they want to continue to fight, they have to be ready to lose everything.”
Both Ansbro and Uniformed Fire Officers president James McCarthy say there is a larger reason for the fight: the Mayor issuing a mandate without negotiating first.
When was the last time IAFF members were fired en masse over a negotiation discrepancy?
IAFF president Ed Kelly’s talk of firefighters being the “tip of the spear” has true meaning for FDNY local unions as they are the tip “in spades.”
They took their position after “Mayor de Blasio mandated that all 150,000 Department of Education employees be vaccinated and successfully defended his order in court,” advance proof that the judiciary would back unilateral action in a pandemic.
And they maintained it even “after the Municipal Labor Committee, an umbrella group for city unions, negotiated a Memorandum of Agreement covering leave procedures and rights for the [vaccine] holdouts that has been embraced by virtually all the largest civilian unions.” (TCL)
Meanwhile, news is emerging that some FDNY members and other New York City workers are alleged to have submitted false proof of Covid-19 vaccinations; FDNY has apparently warned members that such falsification may be a felony.
An investigation is under way; the NYP quoted an FDNY insider, “There’s a lot of people in trouble.”
The number of documented IAFF members dying of Covid continues to rise, the current count is 71.
The word which perfectly describes the IAFF’s response to vaccine deniers is “Shambolic” — chaotic, disorganized, and mismanaged.
And all of this is happening as over a 1,000 people die every day of Covid in the U.S. and the rate of infection tics up, again.
Could it be worse?
Yes.
Vaccine denial has an especially ugly underbelly and it was on display in the Bronx, this past weekend.
A swastika was part of an anti-vax poster outside the office of a New York legislator.
FDNY members and the IAFF can ill afford to be linked to such groups or their imagery.
In a bit of irony, the IAFF recently sent out an invitation to their upcoming educational conference.
A great workshop topic could be entitled, “Disaster in New York: How to Destroy a Union.”
