New York Supreme Court handed a massive victory to unvaccinated city workers on Tuesday, ordering the city to rehire workers who were fired, and give them back pay.
The judge ruled that the disparate treatment of city workers compared to private employees “violated the Petitioners’ equal protection rights as the mandate is arbitrary and capricious.”
“All unvaccinated people, living or working in the City of New York are similarly situated. Granting exemptions for certain classes and selectively lifting of vaccination orders, while maintaining others, is simply the definition of disparate treatment.”
“Either there is a mandate for all, or there is a mandate for none,” the judge added.
In other words, the Health Commissioner of New York violated the constitutional rights of city workers because they were subject to the vaccine mandate. At the same time, unvaccinated employees in private companies were accommodated.
The judge further noted that the vaccine doesn’t stop infection or transmission, and the CDC isolation guidelines don’t differentiate between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals. Additionally, the judge said US President Joe Biden declared the pandemic over.
The judge also said it’s wrong to fire city employees who continued to work while their exemption requests were being processed.
“If this was about safety and public health, unvaccinated workers would have been placed on leave the moment the order was issued. If it was about public safety and public health, the Health Commissioner would have issued city-wide mandates for vaccination for all residents.”
The City of New York was ordered to rehire unvaccinated workers who wished to return, giving them all back pay from their termination dates.
Meanwhile in Canada, the federal government ended vaccine discrimination for unvaccinated individuals entering the country in September. Ottawa finally dropped the COVID-19 vaccine requirement for people entering Canada as well as use of the controversial ArriveCan app.
