Tucson city workers required to get COVID shots by Aug. 24

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Posted on 8/13/2021 at 7:50 pm

Paul Ingram

TucsonSentinel.com

Tucson City officials must be vaccinated against COVID-19 before August 24 or be suspended without pay.

In a 6-1 vote – with a dissenting opinion from Ward 4 alderman Nikki Lee – Tucson City Council and Mayor Regina Romero asked all city officials to provide proof of vaccination or the process of vaccination during an emergency meeting on Friday initiate COVID-19 by the deadline.

Some employees may be given medical or religious exemption.

According to an internal survey, city manager Mike Ortega said in a memo to the council that around 79 percent of city workers have already been vaccinated against COVID-19, leaving around 1,000 employees unprotected by the vaccine. The study found that 79 percent of 3,300 respondents said they were vaccinated, but about 26 percent of the workforce didn’t respond.

The city would wait to see if at least 750 of the remaining unvaccinated workers provide evidence that they have been vaccinated against the disease by Aug. 24 at the latest. Employees could be suspended for up to five days without pay.

Ortega said the city will also establish a “floating holiday” as an incentive for city employees and restore up to 80 hours of pandemic relief to employees so that people, including key workers, will have time to get their shots.

Earlier this week, the Pima board of directors considered a similar move, but turned it down.

In a 4-1 vote, the board rejected a proposal by Supervisor Matt Heinz to mandate vaccinations for county government workers, and they also declined a move to require face coverings in schools by 3-2 votes.

Mayor Regina Romero introduced the topic on Friday by outlining the surge in the COVID-19 pandemic in recent weeks, fueled by the more virulent form of the disease known as the Delta variant. Another 3,225 new cases of COVID-19 were reported in Arizona on Friday after the disease increased day by day. The surge in cases is now at the level of cases in early February, when cases fell after a massive and fatal surge that peaked in January. Across Arizona, almost all counties have achieved “high” rates of spread in the community, including Pima County – which reported 272 new infections as of Friday.

“You know, this has been 18 months of a global pandemic,” said Romero. At the start of the pandemic, the city had few tools to protect families and citizens other than masks and working from home, she said. Now that the city is facing an “unfortunate surge in cases” again, the city has an antidote, a “safe, free, reliable vaccine.”

“If this were a personal health-only decision, it would be one thing,” said Romero, but people who are not vaccinated “unfairly put” colleagues and children under the age of 12 at increased risk for COVID-19 ” .

“This is not about individual freedom,” said Romero. “But about protecting the rights of others not to be exposed to COVID-19 through no fault of their own.”

“The city of Tucson, with me as the mayor of our great city and as an employer, has a legal obligation to provide safe and healthy workplaces for its employees,” she said.

“We have all signed up for the civil service and are in frequent contact with the public,” said Karin Uhlich, councilor for Ward 3, noting that other vaccinations are required to work for the city.

Ward 6 councilor Steve Kozachik took a sharper line. He pushed for a faster mandate and described the first version offered by Uhlich as “half the measure”.

“We took decisive action during this pandemic, but it is not,” he said. “You don’t negotiate with a deadly virus, you tame it,” he said. “If it was left to me,” said Kozachik, he would pick a specific date and “terminate anyone who is not vaccinated.”

“We have children who cannot be vaccinated and they are currently filling hospitals,” he said, adding that 97 percent of deaths are from unvaccinated people. “And the longer we take to increase vaccination rates, the more likely variants will develop,” he said.

Ortega apologized for the late meeting, saying he had prayed for the topic and called it a “defining moment for us and our community”.

“I don’t take mandates lightly,” he said. “I don’t take this lightly.”

Nevertheless, he supported the city mandate. Ortega said Tucson fire chief Chuck Ryan and Tucson police chief Chris Magnus both supported the mandate for the city’s workforce, which will include Tucson firefighters and Tucson police officers.

In his memo to the council, Ortega pointed out that other large employers require vaccinations or are regularly tested, including significant sections of the federal government and companies like Google.

On July 20, the Arizona-based Banner Health network announced that all 52,000 employees must be vaccinated against COVID-19 by November 1, and the Tucson Medical Center followed suit on November 4.

The council’s move likely brings Tucson into conflict with Arizona Governor Doug Ducey.

In April Ducey signed an ordinance banning so-called “vaccination passes”. The order applies to companies that have a government contract and prevents them from soliciting information from customers about their vaccination status. However, the arrangement allowed hospitals, nursing homes and other health facilities to document the vaccination status of a visitor, patient, employee or resident. Universities, day-care centers, home schools and other schools are also excluded.

“The residents of our state should not be asked by the government to share their private medical information,” Ducey said in a press release on the executive order. “While we strongly recommend that all Arizona residents get the COVID-19 vaccine, it is not – and never will be – required in our state. The vaccination rests with each individual, not with the government. “

Ortega said the city had until September 29 to enact a vaccine mandate, as state lawmakers passed HB 2898 earlier this year, preventing local authorities from prescribing vaccines once it goes into effect on that date . However, Republican lawmakers said in a letter that the law is already in place and has been in place since July 1st.

If 750 new employees provide evidence of vaccinations before the August 24 deadline, the policy won’t go into effect, Ortega said. If this goal is achieved, 4,050 out of 4,500 workers in the city would be vaccinated.

“The City of Tucson policy is that all city employees must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as soon as possible as a condition of continued employment, unless a medical exception or reasonable provision for a qualifying disability or a sincere one religious belief is approved, ”wrote Ortega.

“Accordingly, employees who have not applied for and / or received free accommodation must provide evidence that they will be able to work by 24th 2021 at the latest.”

“Failure to comply with the requirements of this policy and the deadlines outlined is a just cause for disciplinary action and anyone who fails to comply with this vaccination requirement will be punished with an eight-day ban without pay,” Ortega wrote.

He added that the prosecutor had reviewed the measure.

Ward 4 councilor Nikki Lee provided the only disagreement. She said that as a representative of the community that Vail is a part of, she knew some classrooms were closed due to outbreaks, but she was concerned about the “balance” of people “just making decisions.”

“It is just a big concern of myself and our constituency out here how we will be able to respond if we open the door wider to some of our employees,” said Lee. “I deeply share my concern about how we balance core service delivery with employer responsibility and public health.”

She also feared that the mandate would not bring the city to a required vaccination rate of around 95 percent, as outlined by Ortega. There could be “negative, unintended consequences,” she said, adding that if unvaccinated people leave or are suspended, it “falls on vaccinated personnel.” She also accepted that if enough employees get sick, there will still be outages in the core services. “Take your poison,” she said.

Alderman Paul Cunningham said he was grappling with the problem.

“I don’t want to force anyone to do something they don’t want to do,” he said, adding that some people wanted to wait a year after the vaccine became available before taking it. While medical professionals began receiving COVID-19 vaccines in mid-December, testing for the third phase of the Pfizer vaccine began in July 2020 with around 43,000 participants.

“How many people will go after a 5-day ban?” asked Cunningham. “It won’t move the needle and it will create a lot of malice. But if you don’t want to be a team player, we might not want you anyway.”

“We threaded a needle here, I don’t know if there’s a correct answer here,” he said.

Ward 1 alderman Lane Santa Cruz said the decision came at a “politically divisive moment”.

City workers should be able to get their first dose, Ortega said, adding that the city has reached out to the county to find and even set up “pop-up” distribution points for city workers. He added that there are sales outlets that are open on the weekends, as well as private vendors and pharmacies.

The “vaccine is free and available through Pima County,” said Romero. City officials will have days to “reflect on their decision.”

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